Lost in Translatione by Sarah Caulfield Latin is a closed door to me. I was born in the years where Catholicism’s devotion to it wanted; I think of it as foreshadowing. The past is prologue and Latin is old money and I wasn’t Even …
by Sabhbh Curran Brooklyn draws together some of Tóibín’s favourite themes – national identity, Catholicism and the changing role of Irish women – in a quiet and understated coming of age story. 1950s Enniscorthy provides few opportunities for Eilis to find and job or husband; …
by Sarah Byrne
I prise the barnacles from the dishes
on the starboard side of our Belfast sink.
I lean over this white kitchen crib,
want to unstack my own ware:
my bones, my ribs, want to rinse them
one by one till they’re sharp and silver.
And just when I think it’s done, you bring me
one last piece from our evening meal,
a porcelain bowl which I drown so softly
in the water, holding its crown for minutes
against the ceramic floor. It swims back to me
of its own accord, still dirty – covered in sand.
(from The Mays XXIV)