Marsh’s Library The smell of ancient books; fusty, dusty and acrid. So deliciously noxious. As though with every breath, particles of history sweep into your lungs and enter your bloodstream. Mr Joyce (James of course) met Mr Stoker (nephew to Mr Bram Stoker that is) in October 1902 in the reading room. Apparently there were …
Author Archives: Salatheel
In Dublin’s fair city …
Can a city still be fair when viewed through a veil of rain and hail? It is a moot point, and on one of my more uncharitable days, I might come down on the side of no. However, I am very far from feeling uncharitable about having left the warm climes to land on this …
Is that real?
‘Is that real?’ asks Matilda, aged 8, whose sister, Róisín – aged five and three-quarters, or perhaps five and five quarters, Matilda isn’t sure – is currently doing back somersaults hanging onto the struts of the upper bunk bed. ‘Is what real?’ I reply. She fingers my hair. I look at her and grin. ‘Why …
My Country
There is something about the familiarity of the countryside around me as the train speeds towards Leeds from Manchester airport. Did I just blink away the last ten years? Did a part of me never leave this place? Time is not a factor that has any relevance here. The hills and valleys do not measure …
The space between memory and reality
The space between memory and reality. Space enough to slip the feeler gauge of imagination, to form a crack that the drip, drip, drip of distance widens into a gorge, where the river of hope, fear and desire gushes down and down until it reaches the sea of forgetfulness.
Memories are made of this
When I look back to my childhood, it is in indistinct shades of grey, punctuated by regular splashes of colour. The colour is foreign in every sense, it bubbles with life and laughter, and its colours are pine green, lapis lazuli and Umbrian red. It rises around me in mountainsides and lakes, gilded churches and …
Salatheel 