Home > Author > Dennis Cronin
1 " Good God, man!” The major general exploded and thumped the well-padded arm of the chair with his fist, a length of ash fell from the end of the cigar and landed on the rug where Kruger nosed it quizzically to determine if it was edible. “This is not any other killing, this is a recipe for an uprising. The bloody country is on the brink of civil war and I’m damned if it will start in my patch on my watch. You will hold that inquest tomorrow morning... the longer this thing drags on the more dangerous it becomes. "
― Dennis Cronin , Michael Sweeney
2 " The soldiers fell into line on the platform and waited while their officers received instructions. It was the early hours of the morning and the air was cold. Michael thought that he could hear the distant rumble of thunder and when he looked in that direction he saw a faint orange glow of light on the horizon that seemed to pulse slowly. He felt sick in his stomach. Months of training had prepared him to be a soldier but until this moment war was just a concept, like a foreign country he had heard about but never visited. It was now a harsh reality, he had arrived on its angry shores. The men around him all face the same way, silently observing the false dawn, they knew that was where they were going. "
3 " The departure of the bishop and his acolytes was like the shot of a starting pistol. The same people who just twenty minutes earlier had been on their knees praying for the salvation of their souls now jostled for space around the many stalls serving drink. The quest for everlasting life in God’s eternal home could wait, they were badly in want of a pint. "
4 " As they approached perpendicularity, the boat gave a slight but disquieting shudder, and at the zenith of each rotation, while he was momentarily motionless, Michael could feel that gravity was starting to exert its downward pull on his body before the return swoop restored his attachment to his seat, albeit briefly. “Go aisy or we’ll end up in the fecking lake. "
5 " For many, the American dream was short-lived; slavery may have been abolished but the ships that sailed into New York harbour brought a plentiful supply of cheap labour to power the wheels of industry and tend to the needs of the better off. It is in the nature of human avarice to exploit the less fortunate. "
