Dublin in June is usually beautiful, but in 1922, it was a nightmare of smoke and sudden death. Liam O'Flaherty captured that specific brand of hell in about 1,200 words. Most of us first read the sniper short story by Liam O'Flaherty in a dusty high school classroom, bored and looking at the clock. Then we hit that final sentence. You know the one. It changes everything. It’s not just a war story; it’s a psychological autopsy of what happens when a society decides to tear itself apart over abstract lines on a map.
The setting is simple. It's night. The Four Courts have been blown open. Civil war is ripping through the streets. O’Flaherty doesn’t give the protagonist a name; he’s just "the sniper." He’s thin, ascetic, with eyes that have seen way too much for a kid his age. He’s eating a sandwich and drinking whiskey, which feels weirdly domestic until you realize he’s sitting on a roof waiting to kill people.
The Brutal Reality Behind the Sniper Short Story by Liam O'Flaherty
History matters here. If you don't get the Irish Civil War, the story loses its teeth. This wasn't just "Ireland vs. England." This was brother against brother. Literally. After the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed, the Irish Republican Army split. You had the Free Staters (Pro-Treaty) and the Republicans (Anti-Treaty). O'Flaherty himself was a Republican. He actually participated in the seizure of the Rotunda in Dublin just months before this story was published in The Watchword and Voice of Labour in 1923.
He wasn't writing from an armchair. He knew the smell of cordite. He knew the jittery adrenaline of being hunted.
When the sniper lights a cigarette, it’s a moment of pure human weakness. He knows he shouldn't. He does it anyway. That one tiny flash of light invites a bullet that grazes the roof. It’s a game of inches. Then comes the armored car—a "gray monster"—and the old woman acting as an informer. The sniper kills the soldier in the turret. He kills the woman. No hesitation. O’Flaherty writes this with a cold, detached prose that mimics the sniper’s own numbed state of mind. It’s clinical. It’s terrifying.
That Ruse: A Masterclass in Tension
Most of the story is a tactical chess match. The protagonist is wounded in the arm. He can't use his rifle. He’s trapped. To survive, he places his cap on the muzzle of his rifle and lets the enemy sniper take the bait. It’s a classic trick, but in O’Flaherty’s hands, it feels visceral. You can almost feel the "paroxysm of pain" as he tries to clean his wound with iodine.
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He drops the cap. He drops the rifle. He plays dead.
The enemy sniper, thinking he's won, stands up. Big mistake. Our protagonist uses his revolver—a much harder shot at that distance—and nails him. The enemy falls. This is where the story shifts from a thriller to something much darker. The adrenaline wears off. The "lust of battle" dies down. The sniper looks at the body he just dropped from the roof and he gets sick. He starts cursing the war, cursing himself, cursing everybody.
Why We Keep Reading It a Century Later
The "twist" ending of the sniper short story by Liam O'Flaherty is what everyone remembers, but the middle is where the craft lives. O'Flaherty uses a technique called "naturalism." It's the idea that humans are basically just animals reacting to their environment. There's no glory. There's no heroic music. There’s just a guy on a roof who is hungry, tired, and bleeding.
People often compare this story to Frank O'Connor's "Guests of the Nation." Both deal with the intimacy of killing in the Irish Civil War. But while O'Connor focuses on the friendship between captors and prisoners, O'Flaherty keeps us locked inside one man's head. We are isolated. The rooftop is an island.
The irony is thick. The sniper wonders if he knew the man he killed. Maybe they were in the same company before the split? He decides to take a look. He dodges machine-gun fire to cross the street. He reaches the body. He turns it over.
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It’s his brother.
That’s the end. No epilogue. No mourning scene. Just the cold, hard fact of fratricide.
Misconceptions About the Author's Intent
A lot of people think O'Flaherty was just writing an anti-war story. It’s more complicated. He was a man of intense contradictions. He was a co-founder of the Communist Party of Ireland. He was a veteran of World War I, where he was shell-shocked at Langemarck. He understood that violence wasn't just a political tool; it was a soul-eroding poison.
Critics like George Brandon Saul have noted that O'Flaherty's work often focuses on "the primitive." The sniper is a primitive version of a man. He’s been stripped of his humanity by the ideology he's fighting for. When he kills his brother, he hasn't just killed a family member; he's killed his own past and his own connection to the world.
Structural Brilliance in Short Fiction
Look at the pacing.
Short sentences.
Sudden bursts of action.
O'Flaherty avoids flowery adjectives. He doesn't say the sky was a beautiful shade of indigo; he says "the night was coming on." He doesn't describe the sniper's political manifestos. He describes his "cold, gleamy" eyes. This is "show, don't tell" taken to its absolute limit.
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The story is a perfect circle. It starts with a man on a roof looking for an enemy and ends with a man on the ground finding himself. The physical distance between the two snipers—the width of a street—represents the narrow, arbitrary divide that caused the Irish Civil War in the first place.
Actionable Takeaways for Readers and Writers
If you’re revisiting the sniper short story by Liam O'Flaherty for a class or just for fun, look at how the sensory details change. At the start, things are muffled and distant. By the end, the sounds are sharp, the pain is localized, and the reality is unavoidable.
For writers, the lesson is simple: Impact comes from restraint. O'Flaherty doesn't need to tell you the sniper is sad. He shows you the sniper throwing his revolver down and the gun accidentally firing, nearly killing him. That moment of near-accidental suicide tells you everything you need to know about the character's mental state.
- Analyze the "Point of View": Notice how we never learn the enemy's thoughts. This mirrors how we dehumanize others in conflict.
- Contextualize the Setting: Read up on the 1922 Battle of Dublin. Knowing that the Four Courts were literally burning in the background adds a layer of desperation to the sniper's movements.
- Identify the Turning Point: It’s not the death of the brother. It’s the moment the sniper drinks the whiskey. It’s his last moment of "comfort" before the world collapses.
The story remains a staple of literature because it doesn't offer an easy out. There is no reconciliation. There is no "sorry." There is just the body on the pavement and the survivor who has to live with what he's done. O'Flaherty forces us to look at the collateral damage of conviction. It’s a short read, but it stays with you for a lifetime.
To truly appreciate the depth of this work, compare it to O'Flaherty's longer novels like The Informer. You'll see a recurring theme: the individual crushed by the gears of history. The best way to engage with the text now is to read it aloud. The rhythm of the prose mimics the staccato of a machine gun. It’s intentional. It’s masterful. It’s heartbreaking.
Next Steps for Deepening Your Understanding:
- Read the Historical Context: Research the "Treaty Debates" of 1921 to understand why the IRA split into two factions.
- Compare the Media: Watch the 1952 film The Sniper (though different in plot, it explores similar psychological themes of the lone gunman) or look for short film adaptations of O’Flaherty’s work on YouTube to see how directors handle the visual "reveal."
- Map the Geography: Look at a 1920s map of Dublin and find the O’Connell Bridge and the Four Courts to visualize the sniper's line of sight.