THE LOBSTER POT
29.04.26
Publisher - Indie Novella
'Kitty looked past Mrs Jeffers to the rain beating on the glass. Away on the horizon, the waves thundered against the Inishbeg cliffs, spray rising high into the sky before falling back to sea. Fishermen drowned out there every year, and Father Doherty said there was no point in weeping; it was all part of the cycle of life and death. Only God knew why the loved ones died first, he said, but now she’d tell him that was a rubbish explanation. Kitty lifted her hands from the chair and Mrs Jeffers let out a squeal at the red fingerprints on the pale fabric. Kitty bolted for the door, running outside and up the hill to her hiding place in the tangle of brambles. She pushed through the wet thicket to the centre where there was just room for her to hunker down. Squeezing her eyes shut, she let the world turn grey.'
In the remote Donegal village of Rathmore, siblings Kitty and Tommy are placed in the Jeffers’ children’s home after the tragic death of their parents. Kitty swears to protect her brother, but when she falls for Finn O’Donnell—the heir to the village pub, The Lobster Pot—her promise is tested. Rejected by Finn, and desperate to make him pay, Kitty draws Tommy into a reckless plan. By the end of that summer, both boys have vanished, and Kitty has fled the village in disgrace. Thirty-five years later, Kitty returns, still searching for her brother. But when human remains are discovered in the quarry, suspicion quickly falls on her. Isabel, Finn’s sister, has long blamed Kitty for her family’s loss. Only with the help of Isabel’s niece Alannah does Kitty begin to face the truth—that the past will never be unearthed unless she reveals her own story. Spanning four decades, three families, two disappearances and one haunting village curse, The Lobster Pot is a gripping novel of passion, rivalry, and the dangerous weight of unrequited love.
“The Lobster Pot is a riveting family saga of high drama and tension, of intrigue, lies and suspense... Rathmore is a small Irish seaside village with big world problems: fraud, blackmail, misplaced loyalties, clandestine meetings, hidden desires. The bright lights of Galway and Dublin lure the fortunate young men away while the stranglehold of familial duty and religious censure conspire to keep the young women in place.”
– Bernie McGill
Winner of the 2023 Edge Hill Short Story Prize for This Train is For (No Alibis Press); author of The Watch House and The Butterfly Cabinet
“At its simplest, The Lobster Pot is a story of a young woman's effort to keep a promise to her dead mother that she would protect a brother too easily led astray but it is so much more, a profile of a community and a generation.”
– Malachi O'Doherty
Author of six novels, short fiction and freelance broadcaster & journalist
“An absolute joy to read, full of twists and turns. Bernie McQuillan's writing captures the extraordinary lives and loves of a small Irish town harbouring big secrets and even bigger lies. This novel takes you from the depths of the human condition to the heights of compassion. A gem!”
– Frances McVeigh
Society of Authors NI - group lead
Photo courtesy of Neil Hainsworth
ABOUT BERNIE
Bernie McQuillan is an Irish writer, based in Belfast with her husband and four children, and works in health and social care. Her short stories won the Look North! John Hewitt short story award and are published in the Bournemouth and Leicester writing anthologies. Stories are also published in journals including The New Guard (US), Spontaneity, The Incubator, The Honest Ulsterman, Women's Way (Ireland) and The Birmingham Arts Journal (US). She is an Irish PEN/John Hewitt 2024 Freedom to Write awardee and has received support from The Arts Council of Northern Ireland. The Lobster Pot was shortlisted by Watson Little x Indie Novella Prize, longlisted by the Caledonia Novel Award and highly commended by Irish Novel Fair. Her love of the western counties of Ireland and the outdoors is evident in her writing.
