Billy O'Hanluain I knew the game was up when my mother told me that Santy had given her a list. I had heard about his many imitators and knew they were just benign North Pole ambassadors who lacked his Arctic magic. I met one of them once in Lee’s on the main street of Dun Laoghaire, in … Read more
Breaking news from The Kimmage Chronicle: everything you need to know about live music and €9 lunches in the shifting Covid-19 landscape. Following rigorous retrials in the Flann O’Brien Laboratory, the €9 lunch – hitherto thought to be just a step too far in terms of potentially spreading Covid-19 – has been found to be … Read more
Gold Fish I envy the gold fish the dignity of his fits and spasms mid the glass shards of his smashed aquarium, the water that was his air, evaporating, floor board sucked around him, gills screaming, cold blood pierced by the furnace of room temperature, epileptic defiance as oxygen congeals his world. The brittle bowl … Read more
Tedium was tip tapping on the pane of Gibbo’s day, the hours slouching into another shite night alone, like the slow but certain, annihilating course of ink on blotting paper. A visit to Tosh in the Head Shop “Happy Daze” on George’s St might just resurrect the dregs, if not by consuming a selection of … Read more
Lockdown measures remind me of the prescription of anti-depressants and other psychiatric medicines. They are both harsh, and both are administered in response to a moment of crisis; both often have severe side effects, which in time often obscure the initial malady that required their prescription. Anti-depressants can be beneficial in stabilizing a patient and … Read more
Editor’s Note: On Monday 26th of July the luxury 5-star Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin removed four bronze statues depicting two Nubian princesses from the lower Nile with slave girls holding torches. The statues had stood outside the five-star hotel since 1867. Billy O Hanluain reflects on the decision. Further to reports and in the interests … Read more
2019 has taught us all we need to know about Mortality. So many writers, musicians, and actors that we loved passed away this year. Some left us far too soon and others bowed out with a fine stash of years under their wings. I suppose, all we can learn from this, is that our time … Read more
I was sickened to read a fawning obituary to an absolute creep and impostor Randal McDonnell. It fails to mention that he was a predator and pederast with an insatiable lust for young boys. He made a misery of my late teenage years and I carried for way too long the shame and guilt for … Read more
Overheard in the local last night D’ye go to mass at all? Ah, just the odd time, ye know, Christmas ‘n funerals. I see, I do go meself most weeks, don’t agree with it all but I like the words but I tell ye something ye get a very different class of a handshake down … Read more