Turlough

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I have 243 stories published in 7 collections on the site.
My stories have been read 1035061 times and 346 of my stories have been cherry picked.
1015 of my 3,483 comments have been voted Great Feedback with a total of 1101 votes

Trusted critic
Turlough's picture
Terence Mullan

 

I shaved my head again today. I shave it every couple of months to disguise the fact that I’m going bald.

My stories

Cherry

All the Chai in China

The last half of the last twelfth of 2024, described at a rate of one hundred words per day.
2 likes
Gold cherry
Story of the week

Mad Dogs and Donkeys

The first half of the last twelfth of 2024, described at a rate of one hundred words per day.
3 likes
Cherry

The Day of the Drone - Luton to the Rescue

Christmas Chaos Part Two - The tale of a complicated and frustrating journey across Europe from east to west to enjoy the festive period with my family. Roy Wood and all the members of his band, Wizzard, said it’s a good job it’s not Christmas every day.
2 likes
Cherry

The Day of the Drone - Gatwick Misery

Christmas Chaos Part One - The tale of a complicated and frustrating journey across Europe from east to west to enjoy the festive period with my family. Chris Rea said I have enough material here for him to be able to write a rock opera on the subject.
2 likes
Gold cherry

Velvet Goldmine

I find this ABC Tales website a warm and welcoming community where writers of all abilities can share their work in the knowledge that it will be appreciated and encouraged. But what makes the site particularly special for me is that a close friend from long ago was a popular member here, regularly posting poetry and prose years before I joined. Julia Macpherson (ABC username Overthetop1 ) left this world far too soon, and at a point where too few had recognised the high standard of her writing talent. Following her death in 2016, her mother Coral (ABC’s seashore ) and her sister Sarah worked with Cerasus Poetry, and with the support of ABC members and the MIND mental health charity, to publish a compilation of her work. I lost touch with Julia in the mid-1980s, but found her again through ABC Tales and the pages of her book, Waiting For Another Velvet Morning .
2 likes

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1015 of my comments have received 1101 Great Feedback votes

1 Vote

Wee Bach

Posted on Wed, 17 Dec 2025

The Stranocum avenue of trees is a lovely thing to see but it really does make me sad to know that the trees are suffering because of their fame. I forgot to mention in my story that they have also been damaged by graffiti as people with...

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Posted in A Hare's Breath 5 - The Dark Hedges

1 Vote

Trees

Posted on Wed, 17 Dec 2025

We will persevere but it may well be that the ABC Beech Nut Germination Challenge 2026 doesn't kick off until the autumn. I've sadly resigned myself to the fact that I will see very few of the seeds that I sow grow into mature trees in what...

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Posted in A Hare's Breath 5 - The Dark Hedges

1 Vote

Beech trees

Posted on Wed, 17 Dec 2025

I'm not sure Di, I'll have to do a bit of research. Some of our national park areas are mountain wilderness with only rough tracks or no roads at all, and we only have a Fiat Panda. But places we can find reasonably easily we tend to go to more...

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Posted in A Hare's Breath 5 - The Dark Hedges

1 Vote

Save the trees!

Posted on Wed, 17 Dec 2025

 

Hello Di.

I googled European beech trees and it says they typically survive for 300 to 350 years, so it saddens me deeply that the Stranocum ones were living up to expectations until the recent arrival of the tourists.

I...

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Posted in A Hare's Breath 5 - The Dark Hedges

1 Vote

Close shave

Posted on Wed, 17 Dec 2025

It was a war really and these things happen in all wars. Although there’s war everywhere, our generation in our part of the world is generally untouched by such events. We’ve been very lucky, so far.

A few years ago I was on a walking...

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Posted in A Hare's Breath 5 - The Dark Hedges

1 Vote

Fairy cars or fairy cakes?

Posted on Wed, 17 Dec 2025

That’s mad, but I’m not surprised. I’ve never got my head round the existence of ‘biscuit’ as a colour for a car.

You’d think that naming cars would be the easiest job in the world. I’d love to have a crack at it. I remember in an episode...

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Posted in A Hare's Breath 5 - The Dark Hedges

1 Vote

Belfast Frank

Posted on Wed, 17 Dec 2025

I suspect Frank was right but I'm not really qualified to comment because we left before the paramilitaries took to running the show and things got really bad. I know that as well as in the cities there were checkpoints set up by the UVF/UDA, the...

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Posted in A Hare's Breath 5 - The Dark Hedges

1 Vote

Lucozade

Posted on Wed, 17 Dec 2025

I take many photographs of beautiful places so I suppose I’m a little guilty in this respect, but I’ve been doing this for most of my life and it’s almost always been with a proper camera. However, it pains me to say that the photographs that my...

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Posted in A Hare's Breath 5 - The Dark Hedges

1 Vote

Wellies and hares

Posted on Mon, 15 Dec 2025

Good morning Jenny. It’s 1:55 a.m. at the moment in Bulgaria but I can’t resist replying to a comment from an ABC friend.

Bearing in mind we’re talking about Ireland in the 1960s, there’s a strong possibility that the lights at the faerie...

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Posted in A Hare's Breath 4 - The Horror

1 Vote

These shoes!

Posted on Mon, 15 Dec 2025

The old man who sits by the well with a cigarette lodged neatly in one of the gaps in his front teeth and fingerless gloves that weren’t always fingerless but he’s never been much good at striking matches has lived in our village since ancient...

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Posted in A Hare's Breath 4 - The Horror

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