Experiments with realism in Irish language short stories by Daithí Ó Muirí

Irish language writer Daithí Ó Muirí’s short story “Baile na gCoillteán” [The Town of the Eunuchs] (2002) begins with the male journalist narrator stating that “nach mbeadh sé de mhisneach ach ag duine amháin (mise) dul ar thóir an scéil dhearmadta seo” [nobody but one person (me) will be brave enough to seek out the forgotten story] (41),1 and that this war is one which was never told before (41).2 In keeping with the writer’s stylistic tendency to avoid specifying places and events, Ó Muirí does not name the war; yet the battle appears to have already been lost by men in a world where women are relatively absent.