A Post for Emily Suess 1980 - 2026

I hadn’t checked in on Emily Suess for a surprising number of months.

Usually, I would see her stuff pop up on Facebook and I’d always look in on it and give it a like. But I’d had my own fish to fry in the early part of the year and I hadn’t really been doing well with keeping in touch with anyone at all. It got as far as last week before it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Emily post or update or share anything in a long while.

So I checked in, somewhat apprehensively I have to say.

The last update Emily had posted was dated 11th May 2026. It simply said, “I’m entering hospice.” In increasing dismay, I looked a little further. It didn’t take long to find confirmation of what I had feared I might find.

Emily Ann Suess, 46, of Edwardsville, IL, died on May 14, 2026. She was born on March 4^th, 1980, in Princeton, Indiana. She was a loving daughter, sister, and friend. She will truly be missed by all who knew and loved her.

I was very sad to learn that Emily has passed away. I have never met her. I have never even spoken to her. But she blogged. And I blogged. And, of course, many others blogged too, but there was one small difference, perhaps, between myself and Emily and most of the other bloggers we ran into along the way.

We never stopped.

I started blogging in or around 2007, with the current blog first taking shape in January of 2008. There were a lot of bloggers back then and there were various ways in which they interacted and socialised a little online. One such endeavour was called Entrecard. No longer in existence, this was a rather quaint blogger network where users ‘dropped cards’ on each other’s blogs when they visited and thus earned points which allowed them to advertise their wares on other people’s blogs. Lots of people were there. Jim Murdoch - who has generously commented on practically every blog I’ve ever writen – was there. Celtophilia Mike was there. Acadia Einstein was there... lots of people were there.

At that time, Emily was in University. She was building a career and a life and her blog reflected it all with humour, determination, and great writing style. Then, in or around 2014, she started to have health issues which, at the time, I believe were misunderstood to be related to fibromyalgia.

In 2017, she was diagnosed with a very, very serious illness. Ever since then, she has used her social media muscle to champion her treatment, her mental health, her creativity, her refusal to ever quit, and her unbelievable strength and humanity. Her recording of her health journey is perhaps one of the most detailed and unflinching accounts of what our friends and family may go through when illness comes to call and refuses to ever leave again. Her telling of her story was personal and involving but never indulgent and never-ever relenting.

Emily may have left this world but her spirit will live on among the vapour trails of the Internet world where she told her story with grace and truth. Blogging platforms may fall and websites may become defunct but somewhere in the digital history of the world her words and her thoughts will remain imprinted, brilliantly set down, and they will remain, somewhere, forever.

Emily was many things to many people. Of that I have no doubt. To me, she was a Writer, through-and-through. A Brave Writer. And she never stopped. Even when the driver was at her door, ready to take her on the final part of her journey. She still turned one final time to her keyboard, her computer, and she wrote one final update.

“I’m entering hospice.”

I will check in on your posts now and again, Emily, and remind myself how amazingly well you set it all down. I send my kindest regards to all your family and friends, and I offer my sincerest condolences to them.

But I won’t be trying to send this post to any of them personally in any way. Instead, I will just do what I feel is most appropriate for Emily. I will post this on to my blog and let it go where it will and be seen by whoever may come upon it.

I mean, isn’t that what we bloggers do? We launch our virtual messages-in-a bottle, onto the ocean of the Internet, never knowing which way they may travel or upon which shore they may land.

And we hope for the best.

 

For Emily Suess 1980 – 2026

Theatrical Healing

One small worry I have is that I might write the same blog every year at the end of another great play run. Thanking everyone. Reiterating how damned lucky I am to get to do what I do.

This year’s new play, ‘Achill Sound’, has provided perhaps the best and most vivid experiences of all the plays, and I do want to thank everyone who made that happen. You know who you are and, at this stage, I think you have a fair idea of what it all means to me. So, bottom-of-my heart-stuff, thank you!

One interesting difference this year was a level of gentle concern for me that I sensed now and again. With my GBS recovery, I can put up a good show practically all of the time but, as the evening rehearsal draws towards a close, some of the peripherals seem to catch up with me.

“Are you limping?” A concerned cast member might ask, “Are you okay?”

It’s true that, by that stage, my legs have stiffened up a little from sitting too long and my hands and feet are buzzing a little more than they usually do. I might find myself asking myself, “Is it real, this gimping around, or am I putting it on?” I actually know it’s real and I know that I’m not putting it on, but the little taunting voice lingers, “Cut that out. Walk right, you fool.”

And so, along the way, there was an occasional quiet query which was gently emanating from some of my very best friends, more than one of them, more than two, more than three. “Are you perhaps doing too much? Are you maybe wearing yourself out?”

The answer – my answer – is twofold. The first part is ‘Yes. Perhaps, I am. I’ve pushed things a bit, burned my metaphorical candle at both metaphorical ends. It’s almost unarguable. But it’s the second part of my answer that counts most for me. It goes something like this: "What else is there to do?"

When I was laid up, I promised myself I would do whatever I could when I got back to strength. This gentle/slightly excessive pushing of the envelope is exactly what I need to make myself feel well and help myself get better and better.

And this experience, this ‘Achill Sound’ theatrical experience, has been the most healing thing of all. The wonderful people who give so much time, energy, and emotion to the endeavour. The lovely evenings and weekends, meeting up with good friends to work it all out. Mocking up a set, watching Kenn the Director blocking out an argument or a fight, laughing, joking, but always working hard at it all.

It’s hard, it wears me out. But it’s just… healing. I can feel it, in my hands and in my feet and in my general demeanour. It actually heals me. It turns out that Theatre is healing. Who knew?

Until next time, guys and gals. Thank you very much for riding the rollercoaster with me.

I may get a bit weary, but I’ll never want off.

K  x

A Little Bit More About the Play - Achill Sound

 

I did an interview about the new play 'Achill Sound' on CRC FM with our Director Kenn McLaughlin on Monday and I think we did okay. Anne-Marie Gibbons eased us along, with her reassuring smile and her firm hand on the tiller, and we got through in one piece. Afterward, chatting to Kenn, we both mused as to whether I should be saying just a little more about the play. What it is, what it seeks to do, and where it came from. That kind of thing. It’s a point worth considering.

Up until now, I’ve largely stuck to the party line that I wrote for myself, not wishing to spoil the manner in which the play’s narrative unfolds. My party line, in case you haven’t seen it already, goes something like this:

“Elaine, an interviewer for a national study in rural isolation, spends her days visiting farms in deepest Mayo. In one remote location, she meets someone who may change her life forever.”

And, yes, now that I look at it again, I think maybe I should say a little more. Not too much, but a little.  So here goes:

Things often seem to come about by a confluence of thoughts and circumstances, don’t they? One of the circumstances that lead to Achill Sound having its first ever performance at The Linenhall Arts Centre on 1^st October was a random conversation that dates back to this exact time last year.  

We were deep in rehearsals for ‘A Sort of Whodunnit’ and I was sitting one afternoon with Matthew Largent and we were agreeing that we would both love to do a thriller on the stage. A real old fashioned ‘hide-behind-your-hand’ thrill-ride of a play. And I remember saying out loud to him, “I think I have one,” and that was that. 

Fast forward to a coffee shop in early December 2025 and Director Kenn McLaughlin, Actor Eamon Smith and me found ourselves ensconced in a Pulp Fiction style coffee shop booth discussing all things theatre and what we might endeavour to do together under our new umbrella name of Big Splash Productions. I said I had a play that might work for us and asked for the Christmas period to work it up and polish it and try to make it right. They agreed and off I went to set to work on rewriting that play.

That play was most definitely not Achill Sound.

January arrived. Time for the ‘Big Splash Trio’ to reconvene and assess the rewritten script… except that’s when a little lightening struck in my life and sent me straight to hospital and thence to a rehab centre. It’s all in the blog. Read back if you’re bothered.

It was well into March before I was back on my feet and able to slip back into the Pulp Fiction booth with the guys. What a good day that was! I had emailed them the play script and, here’s the thing, as I was sending it off, a conversation seemed to echo in my head. A chat about thrillers and how it would be so cool to try and do one.

‘Achill Sound’ already existed as a fledgling script that I had written three years previously. I had quietly submitted it to the annual Irish Drama League of Ireland script competition and had quietly got a highly commended mention which meant I hadn’t won anything but it was cool all the same. I looked it up today and the email I got said the play was found to be, "... thoroughly entertaining with an astute balance between comedy and dramatic tension.” Cool. As I tend to do, I put the script in a metaphorical drawer and largely forgot about it.

But now, as I emailed this different script to Eamon and Kenn, and with Matthew’s conversation echoing in my brain, I pulled up the old ‘Achill Sound’ script and, in an impulsive moment, sent that one off too. 

The next coffee booth session was kind to the new script, enthusiastic even, but the fun, the vibe, the force, was all with ‘Achill Sound’ and what it might become and where it might go. And so began a rare and welcome experience for me; a constructive script development collaboration. Suggestions were made, tentatively at first but then with more momentum. Could we do this? Could we try that? Over several meetings, the script grew and the characters woke up and started thinking for themselves. The fledgling play grew small wings and started to think about a maiden flight. Then, when Eamon agreed to take on the central male part and Kenn agreed to direct the thing, it remained only to assemble a cohort of friends in drama and in life and see if they would might come along for the ride. Which they did. The only lingering cloud is that there was no part for Matthew in it, even though the initial germ conversation had happened with him. With a little luck, I may get to reconvene with him soon in some new dramatic endeavour.

Grand, Ken. But weren’t you going to tell us a bit more of what the play is actually about?

I did kind-of suggest that I was going to do that, didn’t I? Well…

For me, the themes of a piece of writing don’t really show themselves clearly until a large part of the writing is done. In this case, the themes that emerged were ones of loneliness, loss and grief and, most prominently, female strength and resourcefulness.

But that stuff is all in the shadows, lurking in the background.

Primarily, Achill Sound aims to be exactly what it says on the tin – a ‘comedy thriller’. It’s a rarified world, the ‘comedy thriller’, and even more so in the theatre. In film, one could perhaps point to Coen Brothers movies like 'Fargo' or 'Blood Simple'. Stories that are dark but which retain their dark humour throughout. One theatre example that springs to mind is ‘Wait Until Dark’, which was also made into a striking little movie with Audrey Hepburn.

Elaine, the central character, is wounded and struggling and Giles, who she will meet out in the wilds of Mayo, is unpredictable and potentially dangerous. Their encounter will be a cat-and-mouse game in the tradition of all those beloved thrillers that have gone before.

The genesis of the play lies firmly with my lovely wife, Patricia. For a number of years she travelled the rural roads, collecting data for TILDA - the National Longitudinal Study in Aging. On her travels, she met all kinds of lovely and wonderful people. Thankfully, she didn't meet a Giles, but the niggling worry of that (on my part at least) was a primary driver for this play.

Can we pull it off? Will it all work? Who on Earth knows? Isn’t this why we make and attend theatre? The risk, the high-wire act of it all. This little drama has never been done before anywhere. Who knows what will happen and how it will turn out? Certainly not me. We'll turn up on the night, well prepared and eager, and we'll see how it all goes.

People ask me, “Why is it called ‘Achill Sound’” You got this far in the post. There’s only probably two of you left out there reading this. So I’ll tell you, shall I?

There are actually two reasons.

The first is that I’ve always wanted to write a script with the name of a place as a title. Think of ‘Miller’s Crossing’, ‘Mulholland Drive’, ‘Mystic River’, ‘Casablanca’. It’s a noble tradition. And second? Well, second, I always thought that the place name on my play could be nowhere else but Achill Sound. 

And now you know as much as I do.

Come along, maybe, and see the rest for yourself.

Booking for Achill Sound’, which is on at The Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar on the 1^st and 2^nd of October 2026, is via www.thelinenhall.com (click the web address) or on 094 90 23733.