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This vivid and masterfully woven collection of short stories explores the condition of Ireland’s people as the country cautiously steps towards modernity. Caught between tradition and change, these characters long to move forward, yet fear what they might lose. In the title story, ‘Organ Voluntary’, an underappreciated parish organist clashes with a vain young cleric, culminating in a hilariously disastrous Easter spectacle. In ‘A Snowman in July’, a lonely schoolteacher forms an ambiguous friendship with a former pupil, only to face his own buried fears and desires.

‘The Hero of the XVth’ is filtered through a man’s chance reunion with a fallen local hero, forcing him to confront the illusions of success and the quiet tragedies people carry. ‘Catolica’ charts a young woman’s uneasy attempts to navigate dating within a Catholic society. In ‘Calamities of War’, a wealthy landowner’s expectations are overturned when her wartime guests are not what she imagined.

‘At Mrs Moorehead’s’ tenderly captures a child’s first encounter with age and death through a stream of innocent thought. Finally, in ‘South of the Border’, a visiting group exposes the absurdity of small-town pretensions as local politics and vanity unravel. Blending tension and humour, despair and joy, Organ Voluntary offers an empathetic portrait of a nation caught in quiet, everyday turmoil.

Author: Christopher Fitz-Simon