‘When reality itself becomes the conspiracy . . .’
EL by Thaddeus Ó Buachalla was first published in Irish by Coiscéim in 2022. It won an Oireachtas Literary Award and was awarded Irish Language Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards. Now translated from Irish by the author and just published with Mercier Press, this award-winning work captures the authentic voice of contemporary Irish literature.
Ó Buachalla is an Irish language author, poet, and musician from Cork City. He is also an Irish-language singer who performs a mix of traditional sean-nós and spoken-word pieces. He has toured with his show Immram an Phréacháin, a long epic poem depicting a journey through Cork City at night and he is a current member of the eclectic West Cork group Pied Wagtail Collective.
EL is a story about a Cork academic’s accidental discovery of microscopic humanoid beings living inside flies unleashing a four-century conspiracy that stretches from Galileo’s revolutionary revelations to the chaos of Brexit. What begins as scientific curiosity becomes a mind-bending journey through hidden histories and manipulated truths. In our age of deepfakes and social media deception, EL asks the most urgent question of our time: who controls reality?
Weaving between modern Ireland and 17th-century Europe, this award-winning thriller combines literary sophistication with pulse-pounding suspense, philosophical depth with page-turning momentum. Part academic mystery, part historical thriller, EL speaks directly to our post-truth moment — a world where AI reshapes narratives, disinformation spreads like wildfire, and the very nature of truth hangs in the balance.
EL was launched in Waterstones Cork last night. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend so Mercier Press have very kindly given me an extract to share with you all today. I do hope you enjoy and that it whet’s your appetite for more!
EL – Purchase Link
[ About EL ]
When Cork academic Seán kills an annoying fly and examines it under his flatmate’s microscope, he makes a discovery that will shatter everything he believes about reality. What he sees in that tiny specimen launches him into a labyrinth of historical conspiracy, ancient texts, and dangerous secrets that powerful people have killed to protect. As Seán and his fellow researchers dive deeper, they uncover evidence that this same discovery was made centuries ago by some of Europe’s greatest minds—Galileo, Milton, Newton — only to be ruthlessly suppressed.
From the scientific academies of 17th-century Amsterdam and Paris to the corridors of power in Renaissance Rome, a hidden truth has been carefully buried, one that challenges our understanding of human civilisation itself. But knowledge this profound comes at a price. As the mystery deepens, Seán realises that some secrets have guardians who will stop at nothing to keep them hidden. In our age of deepfakes and social media deception, EL asks the most urgent question of our time: who controls reality? Part academic thriller, part historical mystery, EL is a mind-bending exploration of truth, faith and the price of knowledge that asks: what if everything we think we know about our place in the universe is wrong?
[ Extract ]
‘Hang him!’ the girl screamed and she struck him heavily across face. This was the incitement the crowd needed, and they attacked him now with their fists and feet. At that moment, Jan believed they would kill him. There was a fury in them, a fury born of the terrible injustice that surrounded them every day of their lives, of an oppression that was carried out in accordance with the ‘orders of the King’ and the demonstration of those orders as they had just seen with the whipping of the young man.
Then he heard the call, the call and the bell. They all heard it and stopped. ‘Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!’ Some of them ran back to their houses. With the rest distracted by the call, Jan took his chance. He freed himself from their grip and ran for his life back into the narrow streets again. It was dark now and he knocked against the walls as he ran, hurting himself again, but the fear and the harsh voices behind him drove him on. He ran in the direction of the call, and maybe that was why they didn’t follow him too far. That call was a death threat to anyone who came too close. Before long, he was on his own again in the lanes, but he had to feel his way in the darkness now with his hands. He heard the call before him all the time, the call that had saved him from the mob, and he ran towards it without thinking. Then suddenly, he stumbled over something on the ground, lost his footing and went down heavily, striking his head against a wall.
He didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious, but there was a light there when he came to again. Rough hands lifted him up and carried him as if he were a sack of rubbish. Opening his eyes, he saw that they were carrying him towards a hand cart on which a pile of bodies had been crudely thrown. The faces of these people shone in the light of the torches that were tied to the upright posts of the cart, the white faces of death with their frozen eyes looking directly ahead. There was one face there, the face of a woman. Unimaginable fear struck him when he realised that he recognised her. His own mother! But how would she be here now having been dead for the last four years? He let out a terrible wail and fought against the rough arms around him.
They let him go as soon as they realised he wasn’t dead. ‘Oh God, this one’s still alive!’ one of them shouted.
‘We’re sorry, son,’ said another man. ‘We thought you were a body thrown out with the plague. What happened to you? Are you drunk or were you attacked?’
Jan didn’t hear the voices but stood staring at the face of the woman on the cart. He took a step forward but they grabbed him again.
‘I wouldn’t recommend you go too near that cart, if you haven’t already got the plague. We wouldn’t do it ourselves only that the hunger will do us in before the plague would. But why are you lying here in the darkness? Speak up, son!’
But Jan’s mind was frozen now and he couldn’t speak a word. He retreated from them and from the awful cart, back into the darkness of the lanes. After a while, he heard them moving through the city again, their call and their bell proclaiming their trade. ‘Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!’ He stood there alone and motionless now in the darkness, not wanting to take a step left or right, but letting the darkness cover him like a thick blanket, as if it was death itself. He even closed his eyes and allowed the silence to come about him.
[ Bio ]
Thaddeus Ó Buachalla is an Irish language author, poet, and musician from Cork City. He holds a PhD in Modern Irish from University College Cork and is the author of the critical study Clocháin sa Scoilt on the postmodern novel in Irish literature. His epic poem Immram an Phréacháin, which chronicles a surreal nocturnal journey through Cork City, has been widely performed as a multimedia spoken-word show featuring his own musical compositions, accompanied by his unique guitar and oud (Arabic lute) playing. He was a member of the Dublin-based world music group Mandalla and is a current member of the eclectic West Cork group the Pied Wagtail Collective, where he plays an array of instruments from the strings of oud, guitar and bouzouki to the brass of tuba and trumpet. He has also collaborated with other artists, most recently working on John Spillane’s new album Fíoruisce: The Legend of the Lough.
As an Irish language novelist, his work has been widely recognised, with his most recent novel EL receiving awards at both the Oireachtas and the An Post Irish Book awards. He is currently completing his second novel, Arrazalius nó Cathú Antaine, a surreal work inspired by Hieronymus Bosch and set in the 15th-century Netherlands.
https://clonguitarfest.com/artist/thaddeus-o-buachalla/
https://www.irishbookawards.ie/nominee/el/
