Prose in Irish has never enjoyed the same level of cross-over success as poetry. (Go on: name five living novelists writing in Irish.) Yet those hardy souls plough their lonely furrow and still manage to produce the goods.
This is not to damn with faint praise. Given the difficulties facing the contemporary writer in finding an audience, it is amazing that many continue to write at all.
Poets, however little read, can look forward to the odd invite to literary festivals. And yet whatever demon drives novelists still seems to be devilling away.
Seβn ╙ D·rois's first novel, Crann Smola, is a detective story with a difference. Set in Belfast in 1864, it tells of a police detective, William Watters, who witnesses a brutal sectarian murder during one of the city's many pogroms.
He tries to bring the murderer, a member of the police, to book for his crime. Unsurprisingly, he does not succeed and finds himself making a tour of Northern barracks as a punishment for his diligence in upholding the rule of law. In the course of his travels, he stumbles across a series of murders which no one seems to have troubled investigating.
The detective novel in Irish is a rare enough occurrence at present. ╙ D·rois has a sharp eye for his characters' psychology and a sure grasp of his material, allowing the narrative to unfold in a lucid, well-ordered manner.
Special mention must be made of the opening chapter which is especially gripping.
Most satisfying of all, his main character, Watters, is an imaginative achievement of some note.
An Irish-speaking Protestant driven with the rage of the just, he is a believable figure. And before you scoff, don't forget that the linguistic apartheid of today was not as ingrained in the 19th century.
Even more satisfyingly, ╙ D·rois is working on a sequel.
P≤l ╙ Muir∅ is an Irish Times journalist