Austen, a photographer, enjoys playing golf and is a member of a club in the midlands of Ireland. He also aspires to golf-course design, an aspiration that proves to be one deemed by others to be too far above his station.

Sarah was assaulted two years ago. It changed her life. She lies awake beside her sleeping husband and is expecting their first child. Her day in court has arrived. There she sees her attacker, hears the judge's address and garda report, and reverts to stories from her childhood for reassurance.

Lena came of age against the rise and fall of the Celtic Tiger. She is reconciling the role of money in our lives having been a student unable to afford Dublin rents taking two buses and a train to UCD full of posh Southsiders, present at a high-profile kids-gone-wild murder party, and what they reveal about herself and us more generally.

A near head on collision on a remote mountain road brings two women together who know each other since their school days, but who have been avoiding each other for years. Everyone knows these people, some of us might even be them, as they passing judgement on the state of each other, and on our passions, prejudices, sorrows and joys.

A widower is reeling from the death of his wife. In the tradition of his Igbo tribe of Nigeria, and as a musician, he turns to proverbs and songs to make sense of what has happened and to bring peace to him and his son, Odeke.

Ag taisteal ó thuaidh ó Dheilginis ar an Dart, músclaítear cuimhní a bhí múchta le fada i bpaisinéir, a thapaíonn agus a shoiléiríonn le gach nóiméad dá thuras. Is machnamh é an scéal ar chuimhne, ar thuiscint, agus ar bhogadh ar aghaidh. | On a rare Dart journey into town, a passenger is stirred to meditate on memory, understanding and moving on.

A rare date for Julie and her husband Frankie turns sour when a toddler in the restaurant is let roam free, uncontrolled. Their own children are being minded by auntie Terry. On the way into Belfast city centre earlier, Julie and Frankie had passed near The Bray, where when she was a child her father had been shot dead for no reason at all.

Verity has bad physical health and her adult daughter, Lillis is trying to reach a state of mental balance. They are navigating their complicated relationship, having moved from Dublin to Dingle to start afresh. The place and a saint connected with the area may provide the succor they both crave.

Early on Malachi learns that there is them and us and ways of behaving when out in the world. At seventeen he gives more cash than he need for a copy of An Phoblacht on a night out near Enniskillen. It is noted. He feels pride, something he seldom enjoys. He seals his future.

Read by Peter Coonan. Swimming, addiction and longing collide in this Dublin pandemic story. Its flow, stops, starts and changes of direction, are that of the sea.