Author Archives: marionurch

The Rings: a short story

The Rings: a short story

 

Set in rural North Leitrim in the 1980’s, a removal ceremony marks the passing not only of a matriarch, but of a way of life where the old order is forever changed.

“In the hospital in Sligo Town, the undertaker’s assistant was bathing Bridget Ellen while her children were flying or sailing across the Irish Sea from scattered points throughout England. In trains and cars, others were nearer, Ignatius, the youngest of all of them, even had time for a drink.”

From the collection ‘Of Love and Other Miracles” First published in The Willesden Herald Short Stories of the Year. February 2023.

The Rings by Marion Urch McNulty.  (PDF Download.) 

 

 

The Secret Museum

The Secret Museum

Picture the scene. A remote abandoned house, the inhabitants long gone, the contents covered in a fine layer of dust. In a curtained backroom, neatly laid out on a long, narrow table are a number of shabby, un-presupposing old wooden boxes. Hidden inside are revelations, objects of wonder and contemplation—elements of the natural world, a… more →

‘Sectioned. A Life Interrupted.’ John O’Donoghue.

This is what you might call a classic survival memoir. It is about how easily individuals can fall through the gaps and lose themselves, but most of all it is about how people survive against the odds—in this instance, with the sustaining power of poetry and perhaps ultimately, love. ‘Sectioned’ is an understated memoir leavened with… more →

On Writing ‘Violent Shadows’.

I have been preparing the new kindle edition of my first novel and thinking about violence. Set in the 1981, the year of the Hunger Strikes (a transitional year in terms of the Troubles), Violent Shadows looks at how and why somebody (a young woman), might get involved in political violence. As it turns out,… more →