Prose Stephanie Ni Thiarnaigh

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: STEPHANIE NI THIARNAIGH

Stephanie Ní Thiarnaigh is an Irish writer who lives in Drogheda, Co. Louth. She has just finished performing in the Strong Languagepoetry show as part of the Kick Up the Arts Festivalin Louth. You can read her work in Pile Pressand Splonc.She co-writes and presents the Irish Mythology Podcastwhich has been nominated for Best Fiction Podcastin the Irish Podcast Awards 2022.

Bad Blood

Every day for a year you came demanding blood from our wrists, Abhartach,

but from mine in particular, for some reason, to drink in your marbh bheo

and although it felt good to be needed it wasn’t particularly sustainable to be considered drainable or amenable to your demands

for a gory tribute to make a relish cake made of every last drop that runs through me

So I stood in your wake and when I just could not take it anymore

I went to a warrior named Cathán and asked for him to slay you so I would have one day intact.

A hard request, but one for the best - I think?

Or I thought, while Cathán did as Cathán was requested and buried you standing up

draped in all of your gold in the manner befitting a chieftain but unfortunately

you were only sequestered, Abhartach, for a single day

and when you returned demanding more I said Cathán, stop, maybe he is not so bad? And held out my wrist, as if it was an offering to assist you,

and you drank and drank and drank without stopping to ask

if I needed a sup myself so I cried out in my own thirst out that the gods

would dispatch you while you drank what was left of me, Abhartach

and I called for a druid and asked how do we rid ourselves of this terror and put the droch fhola underground with what was drawn from our veins in order to sustain, my dearest Abhartach? And the holy man looked me dead in the eye and said

you must slay your Abhartach with a sword made of yew wood and leave them buried upside down with their feet toward the sky top to tail in their bed

by the holy well for it is the yew tree, you see and I said to Cathán bring me a sword made of yew and a large stone to place on the dwelling cave of my darling Abharthach, and I will surround it with hawthorn and rowan

So I place this stone carefully and tenderly on top of my darling Abhartach

Give me a necklace made of hawthorn and a dolmen to sit on where I will stow you underground

My lovely Abhartach, for safekeeping in thorns and ash and twigs

It is true when they say that the dearg diulaí can never be slain,

only restrained, and I cross and uncross my legs on top of the dolmen stone

again and again, knowing, Abhartach, my love, is underneath all the while,

waiting for me to absent-mindedly stand up and stretch and hold out my wrist

because we only ever suspend our demons,

we never really kill them.

(Stephanie Ní Thiarnaigh)