Lisa McInerney

She had a face like a slapped arse and an arse like a bag of Doritos.

The Church creates its sinners so it has something to save.

You either need to accept the past as the building blocks that brought you right up to today, or you need to be a better liar.

So many other boys and girls grew up with holes in their chests gaping as wide as the Christian fissure that had spat them into the world.

Parents sat gloomy and still, like rows of turnips in a grocer's box. Their little criminals sat with them, tapping LOLs on their phones, or milled in the yard outside stinking of Lynx and taut nonchalance. Solicitors strode in and out in a twist of slacks and briefcases.

There were people dying, too. That's the way of the city: one new man to take the place of another, bleeding out on a polished kitchen floor.

Their notion of bringing the world together under the Jesus banner hinted now at effort without recompense, and they hated it.