Bernie McGill

'The Day of the Papering', a new short story by Bernie McGill on BBC Radio 4
2026-06-26 - 2027-06-26 | BBC Radio 4 Short Works, United Kingdom
Set in an abandoned military base at Fort Dunree in Co. Donegal, the story follows artist-in-residence Kayla, on the final day of her residency, as she installs her work in one of the abandoned buildings on the site. She’s being reluctantly helped by caretaker Dermot who has little time for Kayla’s work. The story touches on ‘the mica crisis’ that affected thousands of homes in Donegal from 2011 on.
Read by Amy Molloy and produced for BBC Radio 4’s Short Works by Michael Shannon, you can listen to the story here on Thursday 26th June 2026 and thereafter on BBC Sounds.
Bernie McGill is the 2023 winner of the prestigious Edge Hill Short Story Prize for her collection This Train is For. She is the author of two novels: The Watch House (nominated for the Ireland European Union Prize for Literature in 2019) and The Butterfly Cabinet (2010). Her short stories have been widely anthologised, and her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4. Bernie was co-judge of the Edge Hill Prize in 2024 and of the Michael McLaverty Short Story Award in 2023. She is a Fellow with the Royal Literary Fund, a Mentor with the Irish Writers’ Centre and an Honorary Member of the Linen Hall Library, where her writing archive is held. Her first short story collection, Sleepwalkers (2013), was re-published in 2025 by No Alibis Press.
