The Sniper

A Republican sniper of the Irish civil war waits on a rooftop, pondering whether he can risk giving away his position by lighting his cigarette. He decides to take the risk, and faces the unexpected consequences. Written while the Irish Civil War was still ongoing, The Sniper was Liam O’Flaherty’s first published work (published 1923 in The New Leader), and went on to become his most famous.

Liam O'Flaherty (August 28, 1896 - September 7, 1984) was an Irish novelist and short-story writer, and one of the foremost socialist writers in the first part of the 20th century, writing about the common people's experience and from their perspective. O'Flaherty served on the Western Front as a soldier in the British army's Irish Guards regiment from 1916 and was badly injured in 1917. After the war, he was a founding member of the Communist Party of Ireland.