A note from the editor

It’s five o’clock in the morning, that strange time of night. I’m having a conversation with a friend on Facebook Chat in Irish, he’s writing a history essay that is due at 11am; he only has 400 words left. The pair of us are half working on our own and half talking to each other on Chat. Then he tells me that he has just written 200 words of his essay in Irish by accident and that he didn’t even notice that he wasn’t writing in English anymore. This is a perfect example of the power of Irish storytelling, even of the power of reading. It changes your thinking without you even noticing in amazing, boundless ways.

This book is the end result of a small-scale idea that was born before Christmas. I thought we might get five or six shortstories, we got fifteen. Fifteen good stories. This is an insight into the quality and high standard of Irish writing in the college (and the interest that is here), one only needs to look for it.

The aim of this project from day one was to give students an opportunity to publish shortstories in Irish and we have succeeded in that respect. There are plenty of English publications in the College, Tuathal is all the Irish speaking community have (a great magazine, by the way). Of course there are some errors to be found in this collection, but this is the effort of students, not an academic journal.

This collection boasts a wide range of stories – from some set in Dublin to one set on Spaceship IE2095! Some deal with the big questions in life and others deal with the more trivial. It struck me as I was reading through the stories, was Fiona (from Siobhán Fay’s story) sitting on the same hard chair in the same hospital as Colm (from Oisín’s story)? It seems we are all connected as one people, even when it is not so obvious to us.

Publishing this kind of book is wonderful the first time, but it is a true achievement to publish it a second time and that is that challenge that faces someone new next year when I’ll be gone on my way, wandering the streets of the city.

I would like to thank the writers, the sponsers and most importantly, you the readers, from the bottom of my heart.

Enjoy these stories, read them under the hot midday sun on the cricket pitch.

Yours,
Pádraig Schäler (March, 2013)

This morning, I received an email from one of Pádraig’s friends, Jen, who had taken the time to translate Pádraig’s “Eagarfhocal” to “An Scríbhneoir Óg”, a book he edited in March of last year, just over a year ago, just before his final exams, and only a few months before heading off, over the big pond, to Cape Cod. I have never been so sorry that I don’t speak, read, or write Irish and that, while I was really proud of Pádraig when the book came out, I could not read his intro to the book nor his own contribution in the original version – yet. I read the translation this afternoon and this evening, and each time, the more I approached the end of Pádraig’s note, the more I cried, as the world just slipped away from me. – Five o’clock in the morning, that strange time of night. Having a Facebook chat with a friend in Irish, dreaming of wandering the streets of the city next year, now. – I know that our dream boat will keep us afloat in this sea of tears. Because we know that we will never give up. Believing in the power of dreams is never ‘mad’. To the contrary, it’s the essence of ‘real life’!