Weep Slack Jaw Research Trip: Inis Mor

After the lockdown ended in Ireland, I headed out to Inis Mor, the setting for Weep 2 Slack Jaw. Have you ever wondered if you could be a pioneer among the first wave of people going to Mars? I have, and there’s not a hope I could. Going through the stretch of Connemara from Galway to Rosaveel, never fails to make me morose. It’s beautiful, but has a bleak bareness to it that I find infectious. So why not set a horror novel in such a location?

There was a storm not long before I travelled to Inis Mor and the memory of it lingered in the Atlantic Ocean. Before getting on the ferry I didn’t have anything more substantial than still water. I knew from experience that it would be a horrible crossing. I first discovered that I get seasick back in 2017, after I’d signed up to live and work on Inis Meain for seven months to write I’m Not Saying It. Doing the weekly shop in Galway was not something I looked forward to, until I started dating a woman there, then not even Autumn storms could keep me away.

I don’t think there was a row of masked passengers on the ferry that didn’t have somebody hurling into a bag. One of the crew members doling out small reassurances along the lines of ‘we’ll likely not die,’ acted as if the storm only aided his digestion. Later, the host of the B&B where I was staying laughed, saying ‘that’s nothing.’ I wasn’t going to argue with a man who spent his life fishing the Atlantic. Plus, I’d just told him the reason I needed a B&B was because I brought my tent, but left the tent poles back on the mainland, I was not one to measure a storm.

Back on Inis Meain I spent my days wandering the island. Never failed to find something new and interesting on each expedition; a species of plant, a rock formation, or a breed of bee you wouldn’t see anywhere else. When it rained and the mainland disappeared in a veil of fog, you’d swear you were in a purgatory designed for its inhabitants to experience the threw depths of isolation and loneliness. During the summer the land is constantly changing, flowers blooming and tourists arriving from across the planet to experience it. But in winter, it’s a harsh place. It’d make you wonder after the people that lived off the land there. Easier now with modern conveniences and electricity. Take those away and add a few zombies and you have a horror story.

What would you do in a zombie apocalypse? Head to an island? There’s a lot of zombie fiction that has characters striving to reach an island sanctuary. I wanted to play around with the idea of how inhospitable an island redoubt would actually become. There are no food shipments, a growing population of refugees, rising tensions, uncertainty. infection spreading and starvation making people desperate. So Weep 2 Slack Jaw takes place between Galway and Inis Mor.

What happens when there isn’t the infrastructure to hold so many? When the power fails and there are none that know how to fix it? It’s winter and there’s barely enough food to feed the islanders, let alone strangers, others. Find out in Weep 2 Slack Jaw.

I’ve added a few pictures to give you a sense of the place from my trip.