Lashback

About the Book

Devil’s Chair Island is a fictional island off the Kerry Coast of Ireland, and it is reached by the equally fictional Gorney Peninsula. Apparently, the huge head of the devil can be seen reclining on his throne from halfway along the Gorney Blade—so called because it is an extremely narrow sandstone spit, 2500 feet high.
The local police, represented by Andy Buggy, have for various reasons, incurred the wrath of the villagers of Oughtnamadra. Every Tuesday morning, Andy Buggy, the local guard, must drive across Knuckle Strand to collect the social security papers known as dole chits from the villagers of Oughtnamadra. Sayvile Crummy, who lives there and is almost an idiot savant, discovers that he has the power to move things with the power of his mind and that he can make use of the idle power that exists in his neighbours. Now, because of a stupid and unfeeling remark made by a Dole cop, he has decided to send any cop who comes to the village for any reason to the moon. This is called lashing the cop up to the moon, and after a year of trying it works. The cop goes there but comes back almost instantly: this is called Lashback.
The villagers are using a power of which they have no understanding. For instance, the length of time that the person stays on the moon and the time of the month when he goes all have an effect on when and where he will return to on earth. There is another strange effect in that, due his being under the psychic power of the teleportation, the teleportee does not suffer any physical damage to his person. Gravity affects him, and he might lose whatever clothes he was wearing, but his blood does not boil and he does not suffer oxygen deprivation. This is because he is in a psychic balloon, which also explains why he always returns to earth.

About the Author

Francis Dominick Maguire was born In Mary Street, Dublin at the abnormal weight of 15 lbs to his mother Christina Maguire, master tailor and his father Hugh Maguire, a sarcristian. He was the 8th child born to his mother, all of them girls and only two survived, his 2 elder sister Theresa and Eileen. He was a healthy child much loved by his mother who treasured him because of his sex and his size.That was on the 5th of October 1933. He was called Francis by all who knew him. He learned to read before he went to school but has no memory of being taught to read, only that he wanted to read just like his sister Theresa who was 8 years older than him. This was no advantage to him when he went to school and he passed none of the exams that were set for him.
When he was about 14 his father sent him to learn a trade and he hated the very idea of a trade as laid out for him by his father and so he became a fisherman abord the Kosmos, the only submarine trawler in the world,then he becamse a sailor in one of the three masted schooners run by John Tyrell and Sons out of Arklow and after that he joined the British Army,
Corp of Royal Engineers, served in Germany, Korea. demobbed 1955, bus conductor in London, joined Royal Air Force. Ground radar Fitter.demobbed 1960’s. electronics engineer, then technical writer, Manager of Decca Radio Station in Ballydavid Ireland for 11 years. Married with one daughter Muireann. Made redundant by automatic equipment in 1984. On the dole, Painting and Writing. Writing did not take so he painted and sold lots of paintings to touristes, some came back for more. Divorced from Ist wife and married again to American lady, came to America in 2000. Still here.