Mickey

(North Earl Street Series).

Before they put that frigging portal there,

that was your spot.

You would park your Harley,
set up your game,
and invite people to play.

I would sit on the step
and watch the world go by.

You always had
a Werther's Original for me.

You believed in Werther's Originals.

Not casually.

With conviction.

You swore by them,
and because of you,
they became a small kindness
I looked forward to.

I remember the days
after the riots.

The protests stretched along O'Connell Street.

The lines were drawn.

The others stood on one side.

We stood on the other.

And the Gardaí formed a boundary
between us.

While everyone else seemed caught up
in tension and arguments,
you were sitting there
chatting away
to a young Garda from Monaghan
as though you had known him for years.

Then you embarrassed me.

You told him
I had been on television.

I wished you hadn't.

You were delighted with yourself.

The sign had read:

"Peace in Dublin.
No to violence.
Stand together."

You made sure everyone knew.

I scarce see you now.

The portal took your spot.

Your Harley spot.

Your game spot.

The little corner of the city
that had become yours.

So you moved elsewhere,
as people do
when cities decide
they have other plans.

But when I think of you,

I don't think of the Harley.

Or the game.

Or even O'Connell Street.

I think of sitting on those steps,
a Werther's Original in my hand,

while you laughed,
told stories,
and reminded a television-shy friend

that, for one brief moment,

she had made the news.

Speed of Light

 (North Earl Street Series).

Speed of Light

He was here in Limerick today,

and with him came memories
of North Earl Street.

Years folded in on themselves.

For a while,
Dublin and Limerick
occupied the same space.

He does here
what he did there:

preaching God's word,
standing on a street corner,
speaking to whoever will listen.

Now he has Jeffrey beside him.

Jeffrey preaches.

He preaches.

And for a moment
it is as though nothing has changed.

We used to call him
the Speed of Light.

Not because he's superhuman,
but because the moment
he stopped preaching,
he vanished.

One minute he was there,
the next he was halfway up the road,
hurrying towards the next place,
the next conversation,
the next person.

Always moving.

Always going somewhere.

Today,
after the preaching was done,
he stood and talked with me.

We remembered North Earl Street.

Old faces.

Old stories.

Times gone by.

The years between us
seemed to shrink.

There was laughter,
recognition,
and that strange feeling
that comes when the past
walks unexpectedly into the present.

It's a little piece of Dublin
when he comes to Limerick.

Two worlds blending together.

A familiar voice
from another chapter of life.

And when the conversation ends,
I half expect him
to disappear again,

already hurrying up the road,

our Speed of Light man,

still moving,
still preaching,
still Jonathan.

Mr T.

(North Earl Street Series).

Mr. T.

You are a dote.

A soft heart
in a world that is not always gentle,
caring so openly,
so innocently,
that people sometimes took advantage.

I never did.

Instead, I watched you go
to extraordinary lengths for people,
more than most ever would.

You told me you were a survivor.

You told me how long it had taken
to go to the guards,
and how much it had cost you
to finally speak.

I understood.

Some wounds do not end
when the telling begins.

You have a place in my heart.

I even wrote a character for you
in one of my novels,
because some people deserve
to live on in stories.

I remember how you loved your little dog,
your baby.

You worried as he grew older,
as though love itself
could hold back time.

For so long
you had no home.

Then at last
there was a place of your own,
a small space
for you and your dog,
a door you could close,
a home at last.

The last time I saw you,
you were heading to Dalkey,
going to your mother's
for a fry.

It is such an ordinary memory,
and perhaps that is why
I treasure it.

What stays with me most
is your kindness.

Not the kindness people talk about,
but the kind they live.

The kind that checks on a friend.

The kind that remembers
when someone is hungry.

The kind that sends people looking
to make sure they are all right.

Even when I had not seen you,
you were looking after me.

People would find me
with gifts from you,
small acts of care
that arrived exactly when they were needed.

You are one in a million,
Mr. T.

Thank you
for your kindness,
for your friendship,
and for being part of my life.

The world can be hard.

You never stopped trying
to make it softer for others.

Life and Fire

(North Earl Street Series)

You appeared behind us

just as I was being robbed,

a cigarette glowing in the dark,
anger already in your voice.

You drove them away
with a cold fury
that left no room for argument.

Then you sat down
in a cloud of smoke
and started explaining the world to me.

You were like me,
but turned up too high,
every feeling amplified.

Angry at the world,
confused by it,
afraid of it too.

But where I went quiet,
you spoke.

You used your fear
to argue with the world,
to challenge it,
to demand better from it.

You shepherded me through difficult days,
fed me when I had little,
tried in a hundred small ways
to make my life better.

You would stop in the middle of a street
to tell the world off.

Sometimes it felt
as though you were carrying on
a lifelong argument with existence itself.

I remember the chicken you cooked for us,
and the guards calling around,
wanting to know
why you were so cross.

I remember being badly sick,
nothing helping,
and you sat me down
with noodle soup
and refused to let me avoid it.

You were a fireball
of fear,
of anger,
of compassion.

All the things that burned inside you
burned for other people too.

I worried for you then.

I still do.

You were my friend.

And wherever life has carried you,
I hope you found some peace,
without losing the fierce heart
that once stepped out of the darkness,
cigarette in hand,
and stood between me and harm.

Sean

(North Earl Street Series). 

You used to toss me a two-euro coin,
but I had to catch it.

You walked unsteadily
and told me people thought you were drunk,
though it was your balance,
not the drink,
that made you sway.

Your smile,
your greeting from across the street,
could brighten a difficult day.

I remember you taking me to the casino
for warm scones and jam,
yet worrying I might start gambling
as you had.

I never did.

You were a warm part of my life,
one of us,
part of the North Earl Street gang.

The years passed.
I left Dublin,
but there you still were,
talking to strangers on O'Connell Street,
greeting me with surprise,
as though no time had passed at all.

More frail now,
leaning against a wall
to keep yourself upright.

You told me how easily
it could have been you
in that terrible accident.

I had feared it was.

He was your age,
one of the gang too.

Sean,
some people leave their mark
with grand achievements.

Others do it with a smile,
a greeting,
a remembered kindness.

You were one of those.

And whenever I think of Dublin,,
there you are still:
standing on O'Connell Street,
talking to whoever will listen,
holding your place in the world.

Brother Gerry

(North Earl Street Series). 

I remember you preaching in the dark on Henry Street,

shouting the word of God
into that echoing alley by the GPO,
as if one lost soul might hear.

I remember you spotting me
sitting in the shadows.

"A ghost," you called me.

Perhaps I was.

People hugged you,
kissed you,
heckled you,
argued with you,
but you never seemed to mind.

You told them of salvation.

I watched.

We became friends gradually,
you unsure,
me wary,
talking a little more each time
our paths happened to cross—

me scuttling about
on mysterious errands,
you proclaiming God's love
to anyone who would listen,
and many who wouldn't.

We spoke of faith,
of Dublin,
of the desperate state of the State.

We sat on steps
and put the world to rights.

It nearly ended
when you asked me out.

I loved you as a brother,
never as a lover,
and it could never be.

Yet somehow
we carried on.

And then one evening,
without expecting it,
we found ourselves holding a life together.

A desperate stranger.
A sudden crisis.

We sat beside them,
talked,
listened,
stayed,

until the sirens came
and others took over.

After that,
life moved on.

You went back to Sligo.

We still crossed paths sometimes,
old friends recognising each other
in the flow of years.

But whenever I return to Dublin,
I find myself looking down that alley.

The dark one by the GPO.

The place where a preacher
once called me a ghost.

I still half expect to see you there,
a small light in the darkness,
telling the world about God.

And somehow I know

that one day

you will be.

I was thinking of you today

(North Earl Street Series).

I was thinking of you today, sis.

I miss you.

I remembered how we used to sit
and watch the world go by
from our favourite café,
describing people, stories, possibilities,
making a universe out of passing strangers.

I remembered one of our happiest days—
when I came back from Galway
and we sat outside Ann's in the sun.
People drifted over and joined us,
then drifted away again,
while we stayed at the centre of our own small world.

I was telling you about him,
his strange proposal,
how everything had changed.

We knew each other so well then,
taking turns to fetch the tea,
the buns,
returning to continue conversations
that never seemed to end.

We chatted with everyone,
watched Greedy Bob terrorise the neighbourhood,
laughed,
dreamed,
and wandered through the past and future
in French, English and Irish.

And then I remembered the beginning.

That day long ago
when you appeared in my life
with yogurt and granola.

A small thing,
an ordinary thing.

Yet somehow,
from that simple offering,
a friendship grew.

I was thinking of you today, sis.

Of sunshine,
tea,
languages,
dreams,
and all those hours spent watching the world together.

I just wanted to say:

I miss you.