David O’Mahony – Irish horror author

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David O'Mahony, author

Contact: david@davidomahony.ie

David O’Mahony is a horror and dark fantasy writer from Cork, Ireland. He specialises in ghost stories but can also be found writing contemporary fiction.

A prolific writer of short stories, he was a finalist in the 2024 Globe Soup primal fears competition and his first round entry to the 2024 NYC Midnight short story challenge was praised as a “creative, original take on the ghost story”. He has been published or is about to be published in Ireland, the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, India, and Thailand.

An award-winning newspaper designer, his non-fiction work tends to focus on history, in which he has a PhD, or on books and literary matters. Read his non-fiction for the Irish Examiner here.

When not writing he is assistant editor of the Irish Examiner, where he has picked up numerous awards for eye-catching front pages. One of his efforts, marking the publication of the mother and baby homes report and naming all the children who died at Bessborough mother and baby home, featured on Sky News, BBC, and CNN as well as being raised in parliament as an important historical document.

His front page on the murder of Lyra McKee was named front page of the year in 2019, and his team produced the front page of the year for 2020 as well as having an unprecedented double nomination. The Bessborough page won the award in 2021 and he won the 2023 award for Thank you, Vicky.

Story bylines: 

Losing Your Grip, 2RulesofWriting.com, October 2023

Brotherly Love, davidomahony.ie, October 2023

Out of Time, Spillwords, December 2023

A Winter’s Wrath, Christmas of the Dead: Krampus Kountry, December 2023

Head Case, Flash of the Dead: Requiem, January 2024, and Exquisite Death, October 2024

Ghost of a Chance, Triumvirate volume 4, February 2024

Ties That Bind, 2RulesofWriting.com, February 2024, and Metastellar, July 2024

Atonement, Soulmate Syndrome: Certain Dark Things, March 2024

Blood Price, Masks of Sanity: Hidden In Plain Sight, April 2024

The Door, Spillwords, May 2024

Indistinct Background Character on a Field of Grey, 2RulesofWriting.com, May 2024

Sacrifices, Flash of the Undead, June 2024

Family Reunion, miniMAG,  July 2024

Opportunity Knocks, Blood Moon Rising,  July 2024

The Archaeological Findings of Ballybrassil, Cork: A Challenge to the Traditional Narrative, Perseid Prophecies, July 2024

Armageddon, AntiopdeanSF,  August 2024

Holy Ground, Spillwords, September 2024

The Coachman, Children of the Dead: Shadow Playground, September 2024

Through the Gateway, Eldritch Encore: Stories Inspired by HP Lovecraft, September 2024

What Gets Left Behind, Stygian Lepus, September 2024

Onward, Petting Boo (forthcoming)

Family Tree, Mono No Aware, September 2024

Grave Tidings, Flash of the Dead: Halloween ’24, October 2024

Lantern Jack, Halloweenthology: Witches’ Brew, October 2024

Doorways, Exomoons–Natural, and Unnatural, Astronomical Bodies Orbiting Strange Planets – A Sci-Fi/Horror/Grimdark Anthology, December 2024

Whispers of the Wooded River, Perseid Prophecies, January 2025 (forthcoming)

Beneath the Skin, Infernal Delights, January 2025 (expected)

Shadow of the Wyrm, Dragon Flight, January 2025 (expected)

Weighed Down, Channel the Dark vol 2, October 2025 (forthcoming)

Editing Roald Dahl’s books is wrong

To say the decision by Puffin Books to edit Roald Dahl’s books is perplexing to say the least. The intention is to make the language more inclusive, and to remove or replace more problematic words. As an intention this is actually meant well, but in practice it makes little sense. Some changes are baffling. Making the Oompa-Loompas gender neutral is one, because it’s completely unnecessary (how was their previous description problematic?).

Now, let’s be clear: Language matters and inclusive language matters a great deal. When I was writing up the Irish Examiner style guide, which dictates what terms and linguistic styles we use, I made a point that we should not refer to people who have a condition in such a way that that condition defines them. So, somebody with diabetes as opposed to diabetic. As a father whose son was diagnosed with autism in the years after writing up that document, I am more acutely aware of the need for such language when you do not have the issue referred to yourself.

But I digress slightly.

I don’t agree with the claims from some critics that the Dahl edits are “woke” or for “snowflakes”. The changes, some of which are highlighted here, are meant well. I see the point of the publisher and recognise that it worked with a group that focuses on inclusivity. But my first reaction to the Roald Dahl news was that it was absurd. These are books, not instruction manuals. Indeed, the French publisher is not going to follow suit. Works of fiction are, by their very nature, works of art and just as importantly works of their time. You don’t have to agree with what’s in them, and you certainly don’t have to agree with how the author expresses themself. Words carry an abundance of  meaning and nuance and it is impossible to avoid something objectionable to someone being written somewhere by any author.

My second reaction was more a question. Where does it end? One only has to look at the campaigns by conservatives in parts of the United States to restrict – sorry, vet – what’s available in school libraries, and in particular the targeting of texts with some LGBT content, to say that censorship on a wide scale has the potential for a very bleak future indeed. We as a species are already grappling with the seemingly endless tide of conspiracy theory and misinformation (as opposed to mistaken interpretation, which is different even though it can also be damaging). Do we really need to hide ideas instead of engage with them?

And logically, where would it end? How far back do you go in terms of sanitising? All of medieval literature would be in the bin, if that’s the case. I did a PhD on it, trust me. Most works considered “classics” would face redaction, some more extensively than others. The Bible endorses genocide and murder in some parts. Heart of Darkness is explicitly racist. Nietzsche is a misogynist. There is a short Marvel series where Captain America – Captain America! Supposedly all that’s good! – expresses disquiet about working with the X Men because “they’re not like us” (and X Men as a whole is a way of challenging racism and all its forms). Perhaps we should pay more attention to how adaptations take the essence of a story without the racism (eg, Apocalypse Now, the Chris Evans version of Captain America).

Decades ago, the Cork Examiner would have referred to women with jobs somewhat patronisingly as “girls” (eg, shop girls). I don’t propose to go back into the archives and change those. It makes me feel a bit too much like Winston Smith from 1984:Disney has taken to adding notes to some of its films, such as the original Jungle Book, to say they reflected older views which were wrong (and certainly the song at the end, where the girl dreams of a future “cooking in the home”, is extremely dated and I have repeatedly said this to my children, who love the rest of the film). I think this is reasonable enough, because it leaves the actual film intact as it was. And it’s a chance to explain to children what is or isn’t appropriate to say.

Some of Dahl’s phraseology is dated, and has been for years. He made antisemitic comments in real life. His work can be cruel toward overweight people – think Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where his weight is equated to his character as a human being. But then David Walliams is equally antagonistic when it comes to people’s differences, and I haven’t seen any campaigns to edit back his work, though the Telegraph claims it could happen. Elsewhere Dahl’s narrator betrays a certain patriarchal approach to the place of women and girls, like in Esio Trot, though some of it is kind of excused by the way he frames the narrator’s voice.

That voice in Matilda for example is very clearly somebody addressing the reader directly (including the interjection, during an extended riff on how it would be delightful to write caustic reviews of awful students, “but enough of that, we have to get on”). That somebody is not necessarily Roald Dahl, though on balance of probability it is. However, if you’re reading the book aloud to a child then that, in effect, makes you the narrator. It’s supposed to. They’re written as you would tell a story to a child, not just as a child would read them. And the way he plays with language and creates words in the BFG is masterful.

I have read a good number of the books to my sons, and we have listened to them in audiobook as well. I read some of them as a child in the early 1990s (or thereabouts) and at this remove can’t recall word for word any of them, let alone say a particular phrase influenced my thinking. What I can certainly say though, and it was only apparent while reading Matilda to my son, that Matilda instilled in my a lifelong hatred of bullying (and fascism) and an appreciation for kindred spirit bookworms (as I was at Matilda’s age and well beyond), as well as a warm affinity for teachers.

My approach, any time I came across something that I felt was wrong, was to simply tell the boys “you shouldn’t say stuff like this” or words of that ilk. They are not cruel and they understand this. But they do love the stories. And going back in to change the language changes those stories to some extent, and that is wrong.