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A Quiet House, A Returning Train
Today I found myself writing two small Common Metre poems—companions to one another. Andrew was in Dublin for a course, and the house felt different in his absence. Not lonely exactly. Just altered. Softer around the edges. The Sunday light lay still. The cats took up their posts. The kettle hummed. Pancakes became a small,… Continue reading
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Across the Barrow Viaduct—Writing Between Water and Iron
This evening I found myself standing between layers of movement. The river flowing dark and slow. The canal holding the last of the light. And high above, the long stone ribs of the Barrow Viaduct carrying a train across the fading sky. Across the Barrow Viaduct grew out of that layered stillness. The engine in… Continue reading
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Singing Psalm 98 in an Irish Key
“Sing to the Lord a new song…” Psalm 98 is not shy. It is tidal. It calls rivers to clap their hands and hills to sing for joy. It insists that creation itself is caught up in praise—not as backdrop, but as choir. In the Anglican tradition, Psalm 98 can be used at Evensong as… Continue reading
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Writing a Hymn—and Learning Stabilitas Overnight
This hymn didn’t emerge in a chapel. It came overnight. In silence. In storm. In the unbuilt monastery of the mind. “Wild winds rise fierce across the plain,My refuge be.” The imagery came quickly. But the deeper formation came slowly—as most Benedictine things do. I’m part of a Benedictine community without walls. We are dispersed… Continue reading
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Half the parish
Waiting on a haircut, tea on the tray, pen in hand—and “Half the Parish” found its way onto the page. ☕✍️ There’s something about the hum of a café and the simple coming and going of people that turns into poetry if you sit long enough. Firecastle, Kildare. Simple time well spent. Half the parish … Continue reading
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Unknown Paths, Rising Hills: Writing a Hymn for the Second Sunday in Lent (Year A) — “You call us out to unknown paths” (CM)
You call us out to unknown paths You call us out to unknown paths,Like Abram long ago;Through mist along the Barrow’s bends,Your pilgrim people go.You lift our eyes to rising hills,Where skylarks greet the dawn;Your keeping shade, like hawthorn’s bough,Stands guard till night is gone.Not by our striving, strength, or claimBut gift of grace alone,You… Continue reading
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A Thaw is Coming: More from the Icicle Lounge this Spring
A Word from North ‘The wind was after rising something fierce that evening, howling across the valley like a creature that had lost its way. I stood by the hearth, watching the sparks fly up the chimney, and I thought to myself: No one should be out in that. I looked at the others—Frost with… Continue reading
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🌿 Morning Reflection for 25 February
Inspired by the appointed readings and psalmody The morning opens gently, the way dawn often does in Ireland—grey first, then slowly revealing colour. The psalms speak of trembling bones, weary eyes, and the long nights when the pillow is wet with tears. Anyone who has ever lain awake listening to the rain on a Kildare… Continue reading
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Coffee Quiet.
Over lunch with my husband in our local café, I settled into the gentle rhythm of the room—the soft sigh of the coffee machine, the low hum of conversation. Around us, friends chatted and colleagues worked, all our different lives briefly sharing the same warm space. As one half of the gay pair from the… Continue reading
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Divinity in Difference: The Window That Says What We’ve Been Trying to Say
Every now and then, an image comes along that says in colour and light what pages of writing have been circling for years. This stained-glass window feels like that. It gathers the heart of NeuroDivine—the essays, the fiction, the hymns, the poetry—and holds them up to the light with one steady claim: Difference is not… Continue reading
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The Pharmacy of Praise
This morning I wrote a hymn about pill boxes and blister packs—about Sundays spent sorting seven small doorways for the week ahead. It’s personal. Andrew and I both live by the rhythm of medicines, colours divided into morning and evening, lids clicked shut in quiet preparation. Sorting tablets isn’t a small thing in our house;… Continue reading
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🌙 Psalm 139: The Autistic Psalm
Coming back to Compline tonight as a Benedictine feels like returning to a rhythm that knows me better than I know myself. The Office doesn’t ask me to perform or adapt; it simply invites me to rest in its steady cadence. And in that space, Psalm 139 stands out as the psalm that speaks most… Continue reading
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Stay with me in the waiting.
There are days when Jeremiah’s cry—“My anguish, my anguish!”—feels less like something from long ago and more like the body’s own truth. In the dialysis unit, with the soft beeping of the machines and the hush of people doing their best to get through another session, you can hear that same ache. Jeremiah speaks of… Continue reading
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God’s Whiskered Rogues
This hymn was born from a passing glimpse on Facebook—a brief mention of otters warming St Kevin as he stood in the icy waters of Glendalough. The image lingered. It was easy to picture the bold little creatures of the river: curious, bright-eyed, unafraid. Not solemn attendants, but playful companions. Not tame, but gloriously themselves.… Continue reading
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The Knot of Grace: A Lorica for the Wired Mind
I wrote the hymn in English first. It came out of lived places. Hospital corridors. Strip lighting. The hum of machines. Motorways. Rain over stone. The strange ache of being surrounded and alone. It wasn’t theory. It was my nervous system on paper. There are days when my brain feels like too much input and… Continue reading
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Across the bog and standing stone
Inspired by the Bible Gateway Verse of the Day — “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18, Authorised Version. This hymn sets that promise within the ancient landscape of Celtic faith. Across bog and… Continue reading
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The Icicle Lounge: Come in from the cold
Inspired by the Birth of The Icicle Lounge, a series of short stories is now taking shape. While each piece stands on its own, they are quietly connected by the Lounge itself — a shared setting where different lives unfold. I hope you enjoy this second story. The Icicle Lounge was not supposed to exist in… Continue reading
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By the Triogue’s Edge
Inspired by the lone heron standing by the River Triogue in Port Laoise that I see as I walk up to dialysis. I stand beside the quiet streamWhere Triogue’s waters glide;The mallards chatter in their team,But I keep to the side.The park hums soft with passing feet,With prams and dogs and play;Yet here upon my… Continue reading
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In the Thin Place of Forty Days
Rooted in the landscape, spirituality, and imaginative tradition of the Irish midlands, the text interweaves the great biblical “forty” journeys—the flood, the exodus, Sinai, the wilderness, and the risen Christ’s forty days—with the sacred geography of Kildare and its surrounding boglands. Drawing on Celtic Christian imagery and the rhythms of creation, it invites worshippers to… Continue reading
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The Icicle Lounge: The Night the Hand was Offered
Inspired by the Birth of The Icicle Lounge, a series of short stories is now taking shape. While each piece stands on its own, they are quietly connected by the Lounge itself — a shared setting where different lives unfold. I hope you enjoy this first story. The newcomer had walked past the frosted windows… Continue reading
New book:
A Living Cloud of Irish Witnesses
NeuroDivine 