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"...stories birling through my mind..."

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Photograph by Billy McWilliams

The last day of summer scheme

1/9/2016

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Picture

I sit up and look out my bedroom window. Coloured bikes coast along the kerbs as children play. I catch a smile and a large shadow in the reflection. I’m nearly fourteen, it’s summer, and my perm is awake before nine.

I rap at the door of the bathroom, a hollow wood door marked by the fist prints of four children thumping.

‘Hurry on! I need in!’
‘Make me!’ comes a boy’s voice.
Another thump and a twist of the handle.
‘Get away you big pig!’ says the boy.
‘Hurry up you wee dope,’ I say. ‘I’m gonna be late for summer scheme.’
​

My plastic rake moves through the bramble bush facing the mirror on the landing. It tugs and toils and emerges all peach and unscathed from the undergrowth as my hair fluffs into round drupelets. A large foamy dollop of white, foamy mousse. A scrunch with sticky hands. A mass of beautifully ripe curls. Gorgeous, I think as I pat my perm, settle down the cow’s lick on the right side and hurl my voice through the hollow wood door one more time.


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    Prose

    Scene from Snugville Street
    ​The Wedding Wisp 

    82 Waterloo Road
    Ballysnod
    The Teacher Voice
    The Last Day of Summer Scheme
    ​
    The Children of Latharna
    The Band Stick

    The Bully up the Brae
    God Created Butlins

    History & folklore

    Language Blog I
    Language Blog II
    Language Blog III
    Language Blog IV
    ​Kailyard & Dusty Bluebells
    Jean Park of Ballygally 
    Fiddles and Melodeons
    Martha Taylor's diary
    Jean McCullagh at 104
    Ballymena & the McConnells
    Arms in Irish Dancing
    Catholics & Protestants in Irish dancing

    Essays

    Irish Times:
    Irish Dancing: The Festival Story
    ​The Protestant in Irish Fiction.
    ​The Protestant in Irish fiction II
    ​Ulster-Scots in Irish Fiction
    ​An author in Wonderland


    Belfast Telegraph:
    Irish Dancing
    ​

    ​Miscellaneous
    Dancing in Victorian Ulster
    Learning the Irish Language.
    John Hewitt Summer School

    Book reviews

    Wigtown Ploughman
    Jo Zebedee

    Lesley Allen & Helen Nicholl
    ​
    Orla McAlinden
    Du Maurier
    Anne Doughty

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