I dTír Mhilis na mBeo

I dTír Mhilis na mBeo: 176 pp; pbk; 978 1 907494 71 0
(Cois Life, 2017)

Shortlisted for Gradam Uí Shúilleabháin 2017

Colm Ó Ceallacháin’s first collection of short stories. Here we meet young and old, struggling with the tribulations of life. All is not as it seems. Is that the Pope we see waiting for two boys during his papal tour of Ireland in 1979? Could those seaside visitors be aliens from another planet?

The characters in this collection are growing up and coming of age, but they are slipping into oblivion too, through the forgetful fog of old age and delirium. We are continually being spirited from this life, but in one story it is the letter ‘i’ itself which is kidnapped, only to return with a vengeance.

Hard though it is at times, we must all carry on to the bitter end, in the sweet land of the living.