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Going Through Changes: A short feelgood Irish story
A short coming-of-age story in 5,600 words.
When Katie's father died the whole family is fragmented. How could she possibly repair things, bring them all back to how life was before ... then she finds a £5.00 note and everything falls into place.
When Katie's father died the whole family is fragmented. How could she possibly repair things, bring them all back to how life was before ... then she finds a £5.00 note and everything falls into place.
18 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 12, 2025
1 person want to read
About the author
Brendan Gerad O'Brien
30 books41 followersOriginally from Tralee, on the west coast of Ireland, I now live in Newport, South Wales with my wife Jennifer and daughters Shelly and Sarah.
When I won my first writing competition I was so excited I ran all the way home. I was about eight years old. The Fun Fair was coming to town and our English teacher asked us to write an essay about it. I won the only prize - a book of ten tickets for the fair.
My uncle Moss Scanlon had a Harnessmaker’s shop in Listowel, and I spent some wonderful holidays there. The shop was a magnet for all sorts of colourful characters who’d wander in for a chat and a bit of jovial banter. One famous storyteller who often popped in was John B Keane, and I was there when John B’s first story was read out on Radio Eireann. I can still remember the buzz of excitement. And I dreamt of being a writer too.
But it was only when I got married and the children came along that I made any serious attempt to write a book.
The result was Dark September, an alternative history thriller set in Newport during WW2. Germany invade Britain. Stormtroopers attack the South Wales coast to capture the coal mines. Newport is blitzed. Irishman Danny O’Shea’s wife is killed. O’Shea heads for neutral Ireland with his son …
I find writing very therapeutic. I get a great buzz from taking an idea and developing it, often watching it evolve into something completely different from how it started out. Great ideas are all around us. Little gems are waiting to be harvested everywhere. I find myself listening to what people are saying, and the way they say it.
For instance, the Irish are famous for their colourful and exaggerated language, always using a dozen words when one would do. So I set all my stories in Ireland. The names are changed, of course, because I don’t earn enough to survive a lawsuit.
The title of my collection of short stories, Dreamin’ Dreams, comes from something my father said years ago when I got poor grades at school. ‘What do you expect?’ he told my mother. ‘He never does any studying. He just sits there, dreamin’ dreams.’
The characters are all based on real people who passed through my life at some time or other, or events that actually happened to me. Enhanced, of course, and sometimes exaggerated out of all proportion.
My second novel, Gallows Field, introduces Eamon Foley, a Local Security volunteer. Set in Tralee in 1941, Foley is in a crowded pub when his brother-in-law Joe McCarthy is shot dead. And no one sees a thing.
In A Pale Moon Was Rising, Eamon Foley is now a guard. A young man’s body is pulled from the River Lee. He’s wearing a distinctive silver ring that belonged to Paudy Daly, the eldest son of the notorious Mixer Daly.
A Crack in the Ice is the third in the series of murder mysteries featuring Guard Eamon Foley.
A Murder in a Different Light is the fourth Guard Eamon Foley thriller. Ireland 1947. Seven weeks of relentless snow. Guard Eamon Foley is searching for a missing child.
At Toby Appleyard’s farm, he discovers the kitchen littered with dead cats. And the skeletal remains of a woman. Upstairs, Toby is dead in his bed.
Footsteps is a stand-alone thriller set in 1967, the summer of love. Dakota Lacey, a young American backpacker, arrives in a beautiful Irish seaside town on a glorious holiday weekend.
There are a load of interesting ideas fermenting in my mind right now, but the hard part is trying to isolate the good ones and mould them into some sort of story that will make sense. Wish me luck, and thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings. Have a good day.
When I won my first writing competition I was so excited I ran all the way home. I was about eight years old. The Fun Fair was coming to town and our English teacher asked us to write an essay about it. I won the only prize - a book of ten tickets for the fair.
My uncle Moss Scanlon had a Harnessmaker’s shop in Listowel, and I spent some wonderful holidays there. The shop was a magnet for all sorts of colourful characters who’d wander in for a chat and a bit of jovial banter. One famous storyteller who often popped in was John B Keane, and I was there when John B’s first story was read out on Radio Eireann. I can still remember the buzz of excitement. And I dreamt of being a writer too.
But it was only when I got married and the children came along that I made any serious attempt to write a book.
The result was Dark September, an alternative history thriller set in Newport during WW2. Germany invade Britain. Stormtroopers attack the South Wales coast to capture the coal mines. Newport is blitzed. Irishman Danny O’Shea’s wife is killed. O’Shea heads for neutral Ireland with his son …
I find writing very therapeutic. I get a great buzz from taking an idea and developing it, often watching it evolve into something completely different from how it started out. Great ideas are all around us. Little gems are waiting to be harvested everywhere. I find myself listening to what people are saying, and the way they say it.
For instance, the Irish are famous for their colourful and exaggerated language, always using a dozen words when one would do. So I set all my stories in Ireland. The names are changed, of course, because I don’t earn enough to survive a lawsuit.
The title of my collection of short stories, Dreamin’ Dreams, comes from something my father said years ago when I got poor grades at school. ‘What do you expect?’ he told my mother. ‘He never does any studying. He just sits there, dreamin’ dreams.’
The characters are all based on real people who passed through my life at some time or other, or events that actually happened to me. Enhanced, of course, and sometimes exaggerated out of all proportion.
My second novel, Gallows Field, introduces Eamon Foley, a Local Security volunteer. Set in Tralee in 1941, Foley is in a crowded pub when his brother-in-law Joe McCarthy is shot dead. And no one sees a thing.
In A Pale Moon Was Rising, Eamon Foley is now a guard. A young man’s body is pulled from the River Lee. He’s wearing a distinctive silver ring that belonged to Paudy Daly, the eldest son of the notorious Mixer Daly.
A Crack in the Ice is the third in the series of murder mysteries featuring Guard Eamon Foley.
A Murder in a Different Light is the fourth Guard Eamon Foley thriller. Ireland 1947. Seven weeks of relentless snow. Guard Eamon Foley is searching for a missing child.
At Toby Appleyard’s farm, he discovers the kitchen littered with dead cats. And the skeletal remains of a woman. Upstairs, Toby is dead in his bed.
Footsteps is a stand-alone thriller set in 1967, the summer of love. Dakota Lacey, a young American backpacker, arrives in a beautiful Irish seaside town on a glorious holiday weekend.
There are a load of interesting ideas fermenting in my mind right now, but the hard part is trying to isolate the good ones and mould them into some sort of story that will make sense. Wish me luck, and thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings. Have a good day.
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