“Welcome, earthlings, to Jeepers-Creeperswhat-does-he-do-in-his-bedroom-all-daylong-dot-com. Everything within Jeepers’s walls, decorated with unfinished song lyrics, is safe, unlike the streets outside, where you can get your head kicked in for looking crossways at someone or not looking at all.”

From the safety of his bedroom, Jeepers welcomes you to Ballymun mid-regeneration, where horizons are ever changing, and a fresh start seems always just around the corner.

 

If Jeepers is trapped inside his bedroom, others are also trapped by invisible walls of regrets, old hurts and unanswered questions. As Sam – the first tenant to move into the old tower blocks – dies, those touched by his life find themselves summoned to his bedside. Frank, his successful son who turned his back on him to forge a new identity; Katie, the unmarried mother whose life had seemed destined to intertwine with Frank; Anne, her young daughter whom Jeepers adores; Martin, a Jesuit in a torn jumper who has lived through every change in Ballymun.

 

 

Awkwardly thrown together, they bid farewell to a drunken father, a good neighbour, a recovered alcoholic and a friend. But they bid farewell also to the tangled history of Ballymun that Sam lived through. To do this, they finally need to address unrequited love and unforgiven wrongs, during one last night when they learn that the truth is rarely simple and that a sense of belonging is neither easily gained nor easily shaken off.

 

The final part of Dermot Bolger’s stunning Ballymun Trilogy, ‘The Consequences of Lightning’ explores a new Ballymun and a new Ireland where old towers are replaced by the bricks and mortar of fresh relationships and by challenges that separate those who have – and those who have not – been able to face up to the consequences of the past and to leave it truly behind.