STORY 18. "A WEEK IN SUMMER" BY MAEVE BINCHY

Maeve Binchy (1940-2012) was born in Dublin, worked as a school teacher, Irish Times columnist, and then as a novelist. Her books, which have been translated into over forty languages, have been adapted for stage, film and television. A feature film of her novel ‘Tara Road’ was released in 2005. She lived in Dalkey, Co Dublin, with her husband, the writer Gordon Snell. 

Maeve attended the Merriman Summer School since 1968. ‘A Week in Summer’ is a short story commissioned by the Merriman Summer School as part of the bi-centenary celebrations marking Brian Merriman’s life and work in 2005, 200 years after his death. Maeve Binchy’s short story, which she read aloud, is about an American couple who came to Lisdoonvarna looking for peace and hoping for a chance to rejuvenate their marriage. They are plunged into the world of the Midnight Court and, even more importantly, of the hundreds who attend the Merriman Summer School regularily.They find plenty to admire and entertain and eventually something to change their lives.

STORY 17: "FIRST CONFESSION" BY FRANK O'CONNOR

Frank O’Connor, pseudonym of Michael O’Donovan, (born 1903, Cork, County Cork, Ireland—died March 10, 1966, Dublin), Irish playwright, novelist, and short-story writer who, as a critic and as a translator of Gaelic works from the 9th to the 20th century, served as an interpreter of Irish life and literature to the English-speaking world.

Raised in poverty, a childhood he recounted in An Only Child (1961), O’Connor received little formal education before going to work as a librarian in Cork and later in Dublin. As a young man, he was briefly imprisoned for his activities with the Irish Republican Army. O’Connor served as a director of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in the 1930s, collaborating on many of its productions. During World War II he was a broadcaster for the British Ministry of Information in London. He won popularity in the United States for his short stories, which appeared in The New Yorker magazine from 1945 to 1961, and he was a visiting professor at several American universities in the 1950s.

(https://www.britannica.com/biography/Frank-OConnor)

In First Confession by Frank O’Connor we have the theme of conflict, appearance, division, connection, fear, innocence and honesty. Taken from his Collected Stories collection the story is a memory piece and is narrated in the first person by a man called Jackie. What is interesting about the beginning of the story is that O’Connor may be exploring the theme of conflict and appearance. 

(http://sittingbee.com/first-confession-frank-oconnor/)

STORY 16: "THE DEVOTED FRIEND" BY OSCAR WILDE

"The Devoted Friend" is a darkly comic short story for children by the Irish author Oscar Wilde.  It was first published in 1888 in the anthology The Happy Prince and Other Tales, which also includes "The Nightingale and the Rose", "The Selfish Giant" and "The Remarkable Rocket". 

The two main characters in "The Devoted Friend" are a poor man known as little Hans and a rich Miller. The Miller claims to be a devoted friend of little Hans. In truth, he selfishly takes advantage of little Hans at every opportunity. Little Hans always does everything that the Miller asks him to do because he does not want to lose the Miller's friendship or offend him. Little Hans' desire to remain the Miller's friend ultimately proves fatal for him.