On a roof-top near O’Connel Bridge, a Republican sniper lay watching. Beside him lay his rifle and over his shoulders were slung a pair of field-glasses. His face was the face of a student — thin and ascetic, but his eyes had the cold gleam of the fanatic. They were deep and thoughtful, the eyes of a man who is used to look at death.
This is the first description of the sniper in the story and the second paragraph. Situating the psychological state of mind of the man is of extreme importance because not much else is going to be know about him. He is not a “round” character by intent; his flatness makes him more a symbolic representative of a sniper. Everything in the tale moves inexorably toward the ironic climax and the full melodramatic ironic impact of that climax is, paradoxically, only attained by not providing too much emotional detail and historical background.
It played with other butterflies. But above all, it liked to fly and flutter in the beautiful empty air, ever moving its glittering wings in throbbing flight, up, up into the wind with a sudden leap, down to the earth in zigzag course, and away again sideways, in and out, as if it followed an interminable maze of alleyways through the firmament.
The butterfly simply enjoys the delight of flight. This imagery portrays a moment of sheer joy and exultation existing simply in the doing and not related to any goal or need or agenda. This wondrous expression of pure delight proves to be the creature’s undoing, however. The pursuit of elation without regard to consequence or even to surroundings eventually and inexorably leads to a bad decision. Or, as the author put it, foolish behavior. Not paying attention to the details of its joyous flight, it flies over the sea, too far to retain the energy to return once the mistake is made. Is this a portrait of innocence gone wrong, obsession breaking bad, or addiction trekking predictably?
Martin Conlon…was a middle-aged man of great size, a good part of which lay in the region of his stomach. His face always wore a sour expression due to chronic indigestion. His lower lip was very thick and it protruded in a permanently hostile gesture. Owing to the heavy load of fat that he carried, the poor fellow was always short of breath. His red cheeks worked in and out constantly, like a person blowing a fire. At first glance, his little grey eyes looked clever, like port holes behind the bastion of his lower lip. At second glance, however, it became manifest that he was a stupid person, constantly worried by the fear of losing his post.
The short fiction of O’Flaherty tends to be sincere, dramatic and irony-free. His forays into comedic writing are rare and therefore to be treasured all the more. “The Post Office” overflows with enough irony to almost read as if it had been written in the 21st century. Much longer than the typical story of this author, it also features a great deal more human characters; some of his most memorable are entirely absent such representatives of mammalia. “The Post Office” has over the decades been recognized as one of the author’s supreme achievements yet is hard to locate in older collections. Just this one quote is enough to reveal how starkly it stands in contrast to the more serious portraits of the natural world which made him famous. It also stands as a testament to the loss to comedic writing which that was suffered as a result of overlooking this particular aspect of his talent.
