Organ Voluntary

These vivid, masterful short stories explore the condition of Ireland’s people as the country steps cautiously towards modernity. Caught between tradition and change, the characters portrayed long to move forward, yet fear what they may lose.

In the title story, ‘Organ Voluntary’, an undervalued parish organist clashes with a vain young cleric, culminating in a hilariously disastrous Easter spectacle. ‘A Snowman in July’ describes a lonely schoolteacher who forms an ambiguous friendship with a former pupil, only to be faced with his own fears and desires.

‘The Hero of the VIth’ is filtered through a man’s chance reunion with a fallen local hero as he confronts the illusions of success and the quiet tragedies we carry. ‘Catolica’ charts a young woman’s uneasy attempts to navigate dating within a Catholic society. In ‘The Calamities of War’, a wealthy landowner’s expectations are overturned when her wartime guests are not what she imagined.

‘At Mrs Moorehead’s’ tenderly evokes a child’s first encounter with age and death. Finally, in ‘South of the Border’, a visiting group exposes small-town pretensions as local politics and vanity uncoil.

By blending tension and humour, despair and joy, these chamber pieces depict people at play enjoying quiet, everyday turmoil.