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Stories
by Liadan Ní Chuinn
Book Reviewed by:A searching, incisive, and profound debut collection of stories about people―mothers, fathers, sons, strangers, sisters―living in the aftermath of violence.
What good is it to know what things are, what lies beneath the appearance of them? It is nothing until it is stated. It is nothing if it is not named. It is just blood, like you have never seen before.
A young man studying anatomy looks at a cadaver. Flowers are found, left in bouquets, all over a museum. A mother dies, leaving a stain on the carpet: whether or not anyone acknowledges it, they know it's there.
The searching and clear-eyed stories in Every One Still Here are set in Ireland under British occupation, a place where the past, grief, and guilt thrum behind every surface and refuse to stay buried. Liadan Ní Chuinn is a debut writer of uncommon power, clarity, and precision, whose characters in Every One Still Here stay lodged within us long after we leave them.
We All Go
1
My parents were hijacked before I was born. It was just before, two nights prior. I think it's important. I don't know why. They were driving out of the city on a road that got narrow, a bad artery, and then they were stopped in the road by a clot: people with masks and crowbars. My dad was driving so it was my dad who braked.
The people in the road yelled: GET OUT OF THE CAR.
My dad said: Paula. (That was all that he said. He wasn't good at reassurance; when the dog died, he was supposed to break it to us gently, but we said: How is he? and he said: Dead.)
The people with the crowbars yelled: GET OUT OF THE FUCKING CAR.
My dad got out. One of the people took his wallet and checked his ID. (They wanted to be sure they were only hijacking Catholics. His licence said Michael Madigan so they took the car.)
The people with the crowbars yelled: What the fuck is she doing?
My mum hadn't got out. She was very pregnant with me. The seat belt had locked tight against her, and she couldn't ...
All six stories that make up Every One Still Here by Liadan Ní Chuinn are set in contemporary Northern Ireland; that is, in a Northern Ireland officially at peace, yet still shadowed by the decades-long conflict known as the Troubles. On either side of this conflict were those who wanted Northern Ireland to remain in the United Kingdom, known as unionists and mainly Protestant, and those who wanted to be unified again with the Republic of Ireland, known as nationalists and mainly Catholic. The first and last stories most explicitly confront the legacy of the Troubles. In both, young male protagonists are haunted by a conflict they didn't live through, and try to get answers from adults who did but are unwilling to discuss it. Every One Still Here is heavy, and impactful. The prose is reiterative, but not in a way that feels like dwelling—repetition stands in for resolution. And if the writing feels unfinished, it aptly reflects Northern Ireland's history...continued
Full Review
(917 words)
(Reviewed by Alicia Calvo Hernández).
In "Amalur," the second story in Liadan Ní Chuinn's debut collection Every One Still Here, a young Irish woman finds herself drawn less to her boyfriend than to his Basque family. Meals stretch late; anecdotes slip across generations. Through allusion and quotation, Chuinn traces a subtle symmetry between Ireland and the Basque Country, two territories shaped by distinct languages, mythic traditions, and long political struggle.
The parallels are there. Both Northern Ireland and the Basque Country possess ancient linguistic inheritances—Irish (aka Gaeilge or Gaelic) and Euskera, respectively—that predate the modern states governing the regions. Both experienced powerful nationalist movements in the twentieth century, ...
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