Aine Ní Ghlinn’s story starter “A Christmas Story” is read by Máirtín Ó Dubhghaill 

The current Laureate na nOg 2020-2022 Aine Ní Ghlinn is a bilingual journalist, children’s writer, playwright and poet. Teaching creative writing  to all ages, she also leads workshops for teachers on irish language and literature. She has been awarded many prizes for her writing and work in the Irish language, including most recently,  the Patrick Kavanagh Fellowship for poetry in 2019.

Her story starter is read by Máirtín Ó Dubhghaill who can currently be see in Ros na Run

A Christmas Story

Where could he be? 

He was there last night when we were coming in from the yard.

Didn’t we spend two hours building him.

A huge snowball for the body. A smaller one on top of that for the head.

A carrot from the kitchen for his nose. Little pebbles from the garden for his mouth. An old hat we got from Grandad. My scarf around his neck. 

Didn’t we take pictures? Myself and my brother on either side and he with his stony smile in the middle. 

Didn’t my mother put the pictures up on social media so my aunts could like them.

‘Mammy,’ I said. ‘Come here. He’s gone.’

‘Who is gone?’

‘The snowman we built yesterday. He’s gone.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. He couldn’t have melted that fast.’

‘He’s not melted. Look out the window. He’s gone.’

The pair of us looked out the window. We opened the door. Everywhere was still covered in a blanket of white snow but there was no sign of the snowman. 

Then we saw the footprints. Big white footprints. Footprints that didn’t come from either animal or human. We started to follow them …