'That Further Shore'

https://newwelshreview.com/article.php?id=2272

'That Further Shore' has been highly commended in the New Welsh Writing Awards 2018: Aberystwyth University Prize for an Essay Collection Shortlist. 

"This collection hinging on Northern Ireland is strikingly organised around images of wild animals. Its themes are ‘making place’ through art, exile, transfer, transition and bridges to reconciliation. Its voice is personal, empathetic and political. Classical references, symbols and motifs from the natural world put this entry into the class of literature."

'Atlantic Palimpsest

https://literatureworks.org.uk/national-memory-day-writing-competition-shortlist-announced/


'Atlantic Palimpsest' has found a home at The London Magazine after being shortlisted for The National Memory Day Prize.

https://www.thelondonmagazine.org/atlantic-palimpsest-kerri-ni-dochartaigh/

‘Atlantic palimpsest’ 

-for Heaney and the Peace Bridge 

  

Grey and greying sky  

reflected in choppy body, 

as our matching heron 

performs his balancing act for all to see. 

  

The Donegal hills, 

patient, 

waiting; barren, 

call a siren song, 

lost and piercing- on the wind. 

ours is a past seeped in rust. 

a history bathed in thick, black squelch; 

M U D L A R K I N G, always, for our sense of self. 

waiting for that ancient bogland 

to spit 

and spew 

and remould 

our memory of last Winter, 

in all its terrifying beauty. 

  

The years that have passed 

are like a body now lost 

to the sea: already long gone 

many moons before that dark body of water 

swallowed it up 

-claiming-maiming; tossed 

-out and in along a coast line  

that will not claim ownership, in the harsh grey spell of morning. 

  

Things hidden under the surface 

that cannot 

cannot 

be kept in the belly of the sea. 

Memories that are washed up 

all along the tideline- obscuring the path 

not yet solid; the future not yet in seed. 

  

 I gather spat up objects, broken things and leftover parts of the storm  

and begin to see them, clearly, in all that fragile, unstoppable beauty;  

  

under a thundering, Island-thick sky.

Hourglass Literary Journal

https://hourglassonline.org/news/announcement-of-short-list/

                                       

                                               LARK / DARK;  

         MARK THIS POINT: A CHILD IS SCAVENGING WHERE THE  

                                      MIRROR MEETS THE MIRE. 

I am humbled by the news that 'Smugachán Sráide' is one of four essays in English shortlisted for Best Essay in the Hourglass competition. 

The essay deals with grief, the Troubles, Martin McGuinness's death, a female project around the term 'Border' at Void Gallery and mudlarking. 

Cordella magazine

I feel so honoured to share that I have work in the beautiful new Cordella magazine issue 'Becoming'. These pieces are unbearably moving to read so long after having been written. Thankyou Cate and the team of strong women at Cordella for sharing part of my journey in your wonderful journal.


http://www.cordella.org/#/gather/

Spread the Word Life Writing Prize

https://www.spreadtheword.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Kerri-Ni-Dochartaigh-Mudlarking-.pdf

'Mudlarking' has been highly commended in the 'Spread the Word' Life Writing Competition. 

There are no words to describe how grateful I feel. 

The dance

The wind was soft and pink when I awoke in the first whisper of the morning and it was carrying starlings -chattering, making for the sky from the rooftops; living. In my dream we were in a different season. The winter hadn't yet tightened his grip upon the expectant world, and the trees weren't fully bare; golden hues of light dripped down onto newly fallen leaves. It was Samhain, the eve when the veil is lifted and the past, present and the future can be viewed from any place along the river that flows;deep and darkening. Quicker than the dawn drags the sun back to the cold, ethereal world, the night fell and all at once I could see you through the crowds that stood like oaks on the other side of the river from where the real oaks stand- ancient and folkloric; makers of the myths of time.

The river began to fill up with reflected and refracted light; fireworks and lanterns on the still surface. You were right beside me then and I could see the crackled parts of your strong, kind hands. A huge, dark shadow appeared on the top of the water and I looked up into the night sky and saw a large, mechanical bird- higher than the tallest building along the quay but low enough to still be visible. The bird was blacker than coal, its handmade feathers dancing in the air as a long piece of willow moved the creature in dream-like rhythm. Feather tips silken and hollow right through yet stronger than the moon's pull on our earth.
I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the bird was mine, every part of its structure belonged to me alone. I owned that large black raven in the Autumn's night sky. And then, all out of no place that could be seen at all, another bird appeared, right behind the black one . Almost identical in size and form but utterly white all over. It almost mirrored my black one in its fine and controlled movements, their wings being made to flap in near perfect unison.

When you first told me she, too, was my bird, I could not hear your words. It was as if the world had lost its soundscape; quietude in the freshness. And then you covered my ears, gently, and mouthed to me as clear as daybreak -'She, too, is yours.'

Silence filled up all the spaces in between for what felt like a long drawn century but slowly, softly, I found my voice, once more, and asked of you- 'Can they only see the black one? Does anyone else see the white bird, too?'
'My love', you whispered, your voice filled with soothing certainty. 'Only you can see your birds. All that everyone else sees is the light show they dance upon the water. The birds are yours to carry, always. They will always fill your sky. But all the shadows they make are yours to keep as well. And from this night on, it is you that will take control.'

As you placed both willow sticks into my hands I watched as my movements made my birds dance, the black one and the white one together. Their feathers filled the river beneath with bright, golden light that made me weep, softly.
'This is in your hands, alone, now. Enjoy the dance, dear child. '

Rust

We talk of rust and tin
and a five year plan
as rain pounds down on an old convent roof.
I remember you from a time long gone,
on a street at the top of where we both lay claim.

Your face- weathered, misted; beautiful,
haunts the deepest parts of me.
Eyes- bluer than cloudless skies,
greyer than industrial steel; 
majestic in the Autumn haze.

Rust spills out of cracks in the world
and I imagine the rest of our days
spent under decaying sheds,
in the West.