Bara Cailín 3: 8 ‘as necessary and required’

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It was announced the next morning that Crowley-Baird Inc. had extended a ‘significant’ loan to the government for ‘the administration of logistical support and other measures as necessary and required.’

Later that day the Taoiseach addressed the nation live on television.

‘Extraordinary times,’ he intoned, ‘will always require extraordinary measures not to mention extraordinary generosity.’

The news roused Mac from his stupor.

“Have we learned nothing from our past?’ he railed at the screen.

Inteachán was pleased to see the old Mac returning.

Bara Cailín 3: 7 ‘Front Square is full of boats again’

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The next morning Mac awoke to find that Inteachán had made him breakfast.

She smiled kindly.

‘You must eat something, Mac. It has been three days now.’

Mac couldn’t manage a smile.

‘Why waste your time with a charlatan like me, my child? All I have done is tell you a lifetime of lies and nearly kill you.’ Mac started to sob. ‘There is nothing left for us to do.’

Inteachán didn’t answer. She looked out of the window.

‘Front Square is full of boats again. It must be high tide this morning.’

Inteachán looked back at Mac.

‘Stopping the flooding would be a start.’

Bara Cailín 3: 6 ‘in lonely anguish’

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Picture the scene.

You are nine years old and the only person you know in the world has now decided that they are totally and utterly worthless. Worse than that, they have decided to destroy their entire life’s work page by page.

Inteachán was overwhelmed by the ferocity of Mac’s despair. He wouldn’t eat and she could hear him pacing his room in lonely anguish.

Inteachán eventually fell asleep to the sound of Mac sobbing.

Bara Cailín 3: 5 ‘Mac cried his heart out’

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Over the days that followed Mac became more and more disconsolate.

One evening Inteachán found him furiously ripping pieces of paper and throwing them into the fire grate.

‘Mac!’ she gasped. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I fear, my dear,’ said the sad old man, ‘that everything I have worked on for my whole life is just fundamentally mistaken and wrong.’

He ripped another page and screwed it into an angry ball.

‘Fomhóire. Infections. Kings. Horns. Tombs. All those tiny words I spent years scribbling now worthless.’

Inteachán stood silent as Mac cried his heart out.

Bara Cailín 3: 4 ‘the tides of the Liffey’

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From Mac’s window Inteachán could see Front Square flooding twice a day as the tides of the Liffey turned in and out again.

This Biblical turn of cataclysmic events was particularly hard on Mac as he had always veered away from the sensationalism of the religious education from his childhood.

‘Don’t tell me that I am now going to have start believing all those stories about end times that I have spent a lifetime rejecting?’

He looked over at Inteachán.

‘I am at a loss, my child.’

Bara Cailín 3: 3 ‘Black slime and waste water’

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One canal.

Four dates.

1751. 1756. 1804. 1960.

Conceived. Started. Opened. Closed.

A new date added now as the Grand Canal begins to flood beyond control.

Basements fill first and fast. Black slime and waste water rises. Drains clog. Sandbags are deployed but do not work.

Boats are floated to save the elderly.

Helicopters pluck corpses from ruined trees.

Bara Cailín 3: 2 ‘Amaranthine’

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And so it rained.

Rained like never ever before.

Falling hard and straight and long.

Dark clouds lay low in the sky like a hateful pall.

Spewing.

Incontinent.

Unchecked.

Endless.

Unceasing.

Amaranthine.

Filling the streets.

Bara Cailín 3: 1 ‘Clanbrassil Bridge’

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So those cosmic cogs and folds and gears and sinister synapses beyond the sense of those of us still left alive continue to grind and grate and turn and as they do so the Second of TheFive finds the moment opportune and duly crosses over fresh with purpose to surprise the world by taking the form of the bridge over the Grand Canal called Clanbrassil.

Bara Cailín – End of Chapter 2

~ Barnaby Taylor ~ 3 Comments

As a new snow now falls on the world I want to pause and thank you all for following the daily adventures of Bara Cailín – I really appreciate it. I hope you have enjoyed reading them as much as I have enjoyed writing them. Chapter Three will start tomorrow so you don’t have to wait for long.

I know that everybody always wants everything from you whenever you engage with anything online but if you are so minded please could you also tell your friends and share the links? That would be wonderful.

I am currently working on the next phase of the project and hope to have more news soon for you all.

In the meantime, if you haven’t already seen it please watch and share the Bara Cailín trailer on Twitter.