New Irish Writing: Growth?by Margaret Cahill
Helen peers out her bedroom window at the silhouette of an old oak tree in the field behind her house. She’s only noticed it recently. It must have been part of one of the many hedgerows that used to criss-cross the land. Now it’s the last survivor in a desolate wasteland. Gone are the cattle and the foxes, the lapwings and the chaffinches and the old stone sheds at the centre of what would have once been a farm before the ever-expanding suburb ate it up. The diggers and bulldozers that turned the field into a desert of mud have all gone now too, the developer no doubt waiting for the plan...
Source: independent.ie