Turbulent Priests by Colin Bateman (Headline 1999)

By noon a rag-bag of some sixty agitated islanders had congregated in the churchyard. They were all men, and they all had guns. Most were shotguns, but there were a few weapons of an altogether more sophisticated hue, which was, frankly, surprising. I’d expected slings and arrows, cudgels, rolling pins, Moses crooks and fish hooks. Not AK-47 assault rifles.

Father White addressed them from the steps of the church. Father Flynn stood by the church gates. He intended to bless them as they went a-hunting. Not the gates, the hunters. He had delegated the actual mechanics of the search to Father White, although I wasn’t altogether convinced that he had much choice about it. 

He’s neither younger nor fitter,’ he explained, ‘but he could have planned the invasion of Normandy in half the time.’

It was said with grudging respect. He looked worried. His voice was dry, his eyes were pinched up pensive. The mob was excited, baying to be off, and though they didn’t need it, Father White was whipping the frenzy up further. It was a simpleton’s version of a fox hunt, chasing a big girl around half a dozen square miles of bramble, scrub and wind-bent tree.

‘That’s an awful lot of hardware for an island this size, Father. What’s this, the forgotten wing of the IRA?’

He laughed. ‘No . . . of course not . . . we get a lot of ships call by, and they’re usually keen to trade. Particularly the Russians. God love their impoverished wee souls. There’s a fair bit of bartering goes on.’

‘You mean like half a dozen cabbages for a Kalashnikov.’

‘Actually, you’re not that far off. They’ve no shortage of weapons but their rations leave a lot to be desired. Poor scrawny half-starved wee men. You could probably equip a small army in exchange for sixty-four of Mrs McKeown’s meat pies.’

‘It looks like you have.’ I shook my head. ‘That’s still an awful lot of weaponry to track down an eighteen-stone schizophrenic. She’s not Rambo, Father, she’s Dumbo.’

‘Dan, she’s with Constable Murtagh, and as far as we’re concerned he is Rambo. He has a gun and he knows how to use it.’

‘He’s also the law, Father.’

‘Not on this island.’

‘Father, you know that’s not right.’

Before he could respond Father White appeared at his elbow. He had a shotgun under his arm.

The Anatomy School by Bernard MacLaverty (W.W. Norton & Company 2001)

'OK - it's not Banquo who fucks things up, it's MacBeth,' said Blaise. He too was chewing at the stem of a piece of grass now, biting fragments off it and spitting them out. 'We are all like a man rowing a boat. We have our backs to the way we're going. We can't look ahead, can't see the future. All we can see is the past behind us.'

'Very good,' said Kavanagh. 'But not so the canoeist.' They all laughed.

Blaise joined his hands and cradled them behind his head and said, 'Where do you think we'll be three or four years from now?'

'What a crass question,' said Martin.

'It'll be easier looking back. Three or four years from now you'll say - remember that day we mitched off to the Waterworks.' They thought about this in silence. Clouds covered the sun and their shadow could be seen moving on the hills. The water sounded continually at the lake edge.

Cycle of Violence by Colin Bateman (Arcade Publishing 1995)

I'm not stupid, not stupid at all. I'm just not qualified at anything. I've no exams. Wasn't much cop at school. But I'm bright enough. I'm wasted here. I mean, I can't be a bloody waitress all my life. I can't get a degree in waitressing. I can't go on University Challenge reading menus. What Jamie was doing for me, as well as being my lover, was educating me. I'd never wanted to read before, but he schooled me in it, sitting here talking about the great writers. But it was a curious kind of schooling, all done through a drunken haze, a kind of second-hand education in which I picked up on the enthusiasm but only half picked up on all the facts. Half remembered names and titles. There's nothing like walking into a bookshop in Belfast and asking for Dr. Chicago by Doris Pasterneck."

"It's easily done . . ."

"Or The Day of the Jack Russell."

"Well, I . . ."

"A Pitcher of Dorian Grey. The list goes on. What I want to do well is write. Write my book."

"You've started?"

"A thousand times."

"It's hard, isn't it?"

"You've tried yourself?"

"Many's a time. I wrote a novel once, sent it off to a publisher. They kept it. Sent me back a copy of the Northern Ireland telephone directory, said it had marginally fewer characters and a better plot. I haven't written much since then."