top of page

SKIBBEREENS

As Limericks are to poetry, so are Skibbereens to short stories or sketches and I hope to have Skibbereens recognised as a new form of creative fiction. My stories are primarily light frothy tales, often bizarre or humorous usually with a punch-line at the end.

 

THE ROMANTIC VOLUME

​ This volume covers issues romantic in 14 Skibbereens. Extract from first sketch:-

Mitcham

Mitcham was pigeon-holed some years back by the socialite arts reviewer Seamus Reilly. Mitcham felt comfortable about that until they stopped feeding pigeons. The trapped novelist became condemned to a life of looking back. Such is the pernickety order  in the minds of publishers, media and fashion that cutting his hair would have improved his chances of breaking out. Though what might worry him more would be what he was breaking out for. Being stuck in a hole however old might be preferable to being out in the shit like the rest of us............

 

 

THE PERCEPTION VOLUME

This volume of 22 Skibbereens considers issues of perception, what is real and how different characters interpret what they see and feel.  Extract from the first sketch:-

​Truly light

​The village lay covered by daytime. Colour splattered green verges fronted by grey dry stone walls, trying to hide cosy stone cottages and camera windows which miss nothing out on the street. It is only different because night didn't follow day. It was day that followed day.  All 'Breaking News' programmes went on standby. They asked the obvious questions.  First they taxed their own reporters who over the years had become studio desk-bound experts, bright eyes, clean cut, million dollar smiles but little experience of the world outside of the internet cafe resources at the Rose and Crown.The problem was the answer lay somewhere in the planetary system, and that was outside the studio. They hadn't got answers, only smiles. News editors later traced some worrying looking academics who were hauled out in front of the cameras from their universities. They would be actually aware that their reputations were on the line..............

THE CRIME VOLUME

A volume of 16 sketches covering different aspects of crime and criminals, victims, cheats, fate and chance situations, stereotypes and more......

Extract from first sketch:-

Inspector North meets the Conspirator

To set the scene I must relate a piece of Irish historical revolutionary news. A Michael Doherty, who was a friend of the Fenian leader William Smith O’Brien back in 1848, according to a recently published diary, fearing that his intentions might be discovered by the authorities and those intentions not being of a friendly nature took himself to Paris. As it is so poetically stated, ‘to become professional in the art and science of conspiracy.’ Personally I wasn’t aware that one could get there by degrees, and I use the word ‘one’ purposely, because to include anyone else would lay myself open to a charge of conspiracy……….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skibbereens
Skibbereens
Skibbereeens crime cover V2.jpg

 

​​​​​​​​​Mike O'Sullivan - novels, thrillers, crime, romance, poetry, Skibbereens, and the ocassional non fiction book

bottom of page