The Harp and Hound had been standing in Kilmore long enough that nobody could remember who built it or why, only that it had always been there and fully intended to stay. Dark green walls, worn wood floors, a bar that ran the full length of the room with gold taps that caught the light in the early morning like they were proud of something. Every scratch on that mahogany had a story and every stool had a regular who considered it personal property. It was not a beautiful pub in the way of things that tried to be beautiful. It was beautiful in the way of things that simply were — battered and certain and completely unbothered by your opinion of it. Maeve had run it for decades with an iron hand and a ledger full of grudges and had left it to the one person in the world least qualified to take it on. Whether that was an act of faith or an act of chaos was still very much up for debate.
Get started by reading some of Feck Off.
Riley O’Brien was the kind of woman who could talk her way into anything and out of everything. Forty thousand people tuned in every week as proof. Manhattan had made her sharp, polished and fast — a woman who dressed for who she was not where she was going and who had spent seven seasons behind a microphone building a version of herself she was only now beginning to question. She was funny before she was honest, charming before she was vulnerable, and just brave enough to get on a plane to Ireland even if she hadn’t quite figured out why yet.
Declan Ryan was not a man who needed a room to notice him. Dark stubble, jaw like Burren limestone, brown eyes that had the particular patience of someone who had spent years working with stone and understood that the best things took time. He mended walls for a living and spoke only when something was worth saying. He sat on stool three, drank his whiskey neat and had the unsettling quality of a man who saw exactly what was in front of him without making a performance of it.
Jack McInerney walked into every room like he already knew how it was going to go. Blue eyes not quite ocean and not quite sea, dark hair, knuckles scarred from a life spent doing things with his hands. He was direct in the way of people who had never needed to soften anything, funny without trying and infuriating in the specific way of someone who was almost always right and knew it. He smelled like the earth outside and Riley was choosing not to think about that.
Oisín was a man of very few words and very strong opinions, most of which he delivered through silence and the occasional raise of a pint glass. Plum red cheeks, flat cap, the particular gravity of a man whose stool had his name on it whether it said so or not. He had been coming to the Harp and Hound long enough that the wood remembered him. He ordered his meat pie and his pint in that order and had no interest in anything that interrupted either.
Tibby was twelve pounds of black cat and lifelong grievance, a diamond collar the only concession he made to the fact that someone else paid the bills. He had never in his life done anything he didn’t want to do and saw no reason to start. His green eyes delivered verdicts that required no words and his presence in any room was always, without exception, on his own terms. He was Riley’s cat in the legal sense only.
Peggy had silver hair wound tight in a bun that sat slightly off center, a green cardigan that had never once been replaced, and a name tag that read Proprietress Since Before You Were Born. She ran the Harp and Hound the way she ran everything — with complete authority and very few words. She had known Maeve long enough to love her and had seen enough of the world walk through that door to know Riley O’Brien was going to be something. She just wasn’t telling her that yet.
Claire McClaire was fifty five going on forty and making no apologies for either. Blonde highlights, a sapphire scarf, crimson nails and the energy of a woman who had decided life was too short for quiet entrances. She was a banker’s wife who moved through Kilmore like she owned it, which in every way that mattered she did. She noticed everything, said most of it out loud and had taken one look at Riley O’Brien and decided she was the most interesting thing to walk into the Harp and Hound in years. She was not wrong.
