Man up!
It was a “Dragon’s Den” moment last Tuesday, the final grading meeting. Two inquisitors from the university questioned me about my folder of evidence and wished me well with my future career. An email came the next day, congratulating me on having achieved qualified teacher status. The educational authorities are wise enough to realise that it is only the first … [continue reading …]
Midsummer’s night
Three decades ago, the last two weeks of June were spent in a cottage in Connemara. The weather was mostly grey, but occasionally the clouds broke and the sun shone. Walking with friends on 24th June, at the junction of two back roads there were the ashes of a bonfire. “A Saint John’s Night fire,” commented a friend. An inquiry … [continue reading …]
Nigel’s dilemma
Set against the “Prague Spring” reforms of 1968 and the subsequent Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Milan Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being asks the question that is the dilemma for many who are caught in inexorable processes of history, “is it better to shout and thereby hasten the end, or to keep silent and gain thereby a slower death?” … [continue reading …]
TELEGRAPHIC TRANSFER NOTICE ,
This was spammed by Google. It is very amateurish. Zenith Bank (UK) Ltd 39 Cornhill London EC3V 3ND United Kingdom tel: +44 70 8646 8527 Fax:+447043071539 Dear Esteemed Customer, TELEGRAPHIC TRANSFER NOTICE. We are hereby officially notify you concerning your fund Telegraphic Transfer through our bank, Zenith Bank (UK) Ltd United Kingdom, to your bank account, which has been officially … [continue reading …]
A people unremembered
A tree grows up out of a grave at Saint Andrew’s Church in High Ham. The name of the deceased, whose mortal remains lay beneath the tree, is indecipherable, not that legibility would add much to knowledge of them. The corner of the churchyard dotted with Victorian memorials stands in deep grass, the graves have been unattended for generations. It … [continue reading …]
John the Baptist – a man for the 21st Century
“What did you go out to see? A reed shaken by the wind, a man dressed in fine clothes, a prophet?” Jesus asked those questions of the people who had gone to see John the Baptist. John had become someone of celebrity status, the ordinary people flocked to hear him, but so did the rich and the powerful. What was their … [continue reading …]
To all Frenchmen!
It is the anniversary of General de Gaulle’s appeal to the French people from London on 18th June 1940, an appeal that seems to be commemorated in almost every community in France. De Gaulle’s speech that day, on the English-speaking BBC, was only actually heard by a minority of French people, his broadcast on the BBC four days later on … [continue reading …]
Anachronistic songs
It was of its time – and its time is long past. It is hard to recall the song having been played on the radio since it was in the charts. I remember hearing it on “Top of the Pops” on a Thursday night. It was always the busiest evening of the week in the television room. A small black … [continue reading …]
Settling the account
This story was expanded from a piece of flash fiction. It was entered for this year’s RTÉ Francis McManus Short Story Competition. The evening classes at the college gave her the opportunity. It was a computing class that had taught her to use the Internet, something of which she had been frightened. It had been the stories in the papers … [continue reading …]