Marc de Faoite

Death or Plastic is my second piece of writing published in Ireland this year (read Finnuala Fiesta featured in The Incubator here ) and appears in Issue #9 of The Runt , entitled Lost At Sea , and launched on the 19th of May. Details of the launch are here . Perhaps it will involved a bottle of champagne swung pendulum-like and smashed against its hull. Perhaps not. If you are in Dublin go ahead and attend and find out. I'd love to be there, but there's the small matter of ten thousand kilometres in the way.

Read my short story Protection in Roadside Fiction - April 2014 edition

FOREWORD This essay is based on on article I was asked to write for the Generation Emigration section of the online version of The Irish Times in November 2012.  This is the first time I've had anything I’ve written published in Ireland.  It’s a homecoming of sorts. The column allowed comments, and a surprising number of people took the time to write their reactions to my piece.  While the majority of them were very favorable and flattering there was one comment submitted by a person pen-named Elle that was particularly vicious and scathing. Her anger was palpable in her words and I could visualize her hammering the keyboard keys and enraged flecks of spittle hitting the computer screen. Reading my article had obviously pushed her buttons in some way. Her comments gave me an insight into what from this distance seems to be a prevailing mindset of negativity that has engulfed Ireland in the last few years.  My own reactions to Elle's nega...