The Sniper
On a Dublin rooftop during the Irish Civil War, a wounded Republican sniper outwits and kills an enemy marksman, then crosses the street to see whom he has shot.
It is a June night in Dublin, and Irishmen are fighting Irishmen in the streets. A young Republican sniper lies on a roof near O’Connell Bridge, hungry and alert, while a marksman on the roof across the street waits for him to make a mistake. Once he is wounded, he has only a revolver and a simple trick to get out alive. Liam O’Flaherty’s very short story moves like a thriller and ends with a discovery that turns a clever victory into a family tragedy.
What happens in The Sniper
On a June night in Dublin, the Irish Civil War is being fought in the streets. Artillery pounds the besieged Four Courts as Republicans and Free Staters fight. From a rooftop by O’Connell Bridge, a young Republican sniper keeps watch with his rifle and field glasses. Hungry after a day without food, he eats, drinks some whiskey, and risks lighting a cigarette. At once a bullet strikes the parapet beside him. He shifts position, draws another shot, and sees that it came from the roof across the street, where an enemy sniper is hidden. An enemy armoured car then crosses the bridge and halts in the street below, and the sniper knows his bullets cannot pierce its armour. An old woman in a ragged shawl comes out of a side street, speaks to the gunner in the car’s turret, and points toward the sniper’s roof. When the gunner looks out, the sniper kills him. As the woman runs, he shoots her too. Then the enemy sniper fires, and a bullet lodges in the bone of the Republican’s right forearm. Unable to lift his rifle, he cuts open his sleeve, pours iodine into the wound, and bandages it. He must get away before daylight, and the enemy sniper blocks his escape, so he tries a trick. He raises his cap on the end of his rifle, and the enemy shoots through it. The Republican lets the cap drop into the street, lets one hand dangle over the edge as if he were dead, and then lets the rifle fall too. Convinced he has won, the enemy sniper stands up, outlined against the sky. The Republican hits him with a revolver shot from about fifty yards, and the dying man falls to the street. The victory brings no joy. Worn out by pain and hunger, the sniper is sickened and rails against the war, himself and everyone else. He flings down his revolver, which goes off and nearly hits him, and the scare steadies him. He finishes his whiskey and sets off to report to his company commander. In the street, he grows curious about the man he killed, a good shot who might once have served beside him before the army split. He dashes across under machine-gun fire and turns the body over. The dead man is his brother.
Where and when The Sniper happens
A Dublin rooftop near O’Connell Bridge
The Republican’s post, with a low parapet and chimney stacks for cover and a skylight leading down into the house below.
The street below
Where the armoured car stops, the old woman falls, the enemy’s rifle lands after bouncing off a barber’s pole, and the brother’s body lies.
Dublin at war
A moonlit city beside the dark River Liffey, with artillery around the besieged Four Courts and shooting in the streets.
A June night early in the Irish Civil War
The story gives no year, but a June night with the Four Courts under siege points to the start of the fighting in Dublin in late June 1922.
Timeline the story arc, beat by beat
- The rooftop A risky cigarette
On a roof near O’Connell Bridge, the Republican sniper lights a cigarette, and an enemy bullet strikes the parapet.
- The informer Two shots
An old woman points out his roof to an enemy armoured car, and he shoots the car’s gunner and then her.
- The wound Hit in the forearm
The enemy sniper across the street hits his right forearm, and he cleans and bandages the wound himself.
- The trick The cap on the rifle
He raises his cap on his rifle, lets it be shot and fall, and makes it look as if he has been killed.
- The duel The enemy falls
When the enemy sniper stands up, the Republican hits him with a revolver shot, and the body falls to the street.
- The remorse Sickened by victory
Overcome with disgust, he curses the war and throws down his revolver, which fires and nearly hits him.
- The end A face in the street
Curious about the dead man, he runs across under machine-gun fire, turns the body over, and sees his brother.
Characters and how they connect
The Republican sniper
Protagonist
A thin, young fighter on the anti-Treaty side who seems used to death, stays cool under fire, and is never named.
The enemy sniper
Opposing marksman
A skilled rifleman on the roof across the street who wounds the Republican, falls for his trick, and is revealed in the last line as his brother.
The old woman
Informer
A woman in a ragged shawl who shows the armoured car where the sniper is hiding and is shot as she runs away.
The armoured car gunner
Enemy machine gunner
The soldier who looks out of the armoured car after the old woman’s tip and is shot dead.
Character Relationships who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them
Family
Connection
Themes in The Sniper what the story is really about
The cost of civil war
A war between former comrades turns neighbors and even brothers into targets, and the last line makes that cost personal.
The faceless enemy
The sniper sees only a flash and a silhouette across the street, and the enemy becomes a person only when it is too late.
Survival and cunning
Wounded and outgunned, the sniper stays alive by thinking clearly, and the story respects his skill while questioning what it is for.
Guilt and remorse
Once the shooting stops, his excitement collapses into disgust, a sign that the fighter still has a conscience.
Divided loyalties
The army’s split over the Treaty means men who once served together now shoot at each other, and the brother’s body shows how deep the split runs.
Symbols & motifs
The cap on the rifle
The decoy stands for the deceptions war demands, and it works because the enemy thinks exactly the way the sniper does.
The armoured car
Its steel, which the sniper’s bullets cannot pierce, suggests the heavy machinery of war set against one man with a rifle.
The brother’s face
The face the sniper finally sees stands for the shared identity the war has hidden, turning an anonymous enemy into family.
Light and darkness
A match flame nearly gets the sniper killed, and the enemy dies when he stands up against the lighter sky, so being seen means being shot.
Recurring motifs
Hunger and whiskey. The sniper has fasted all day, and his second drink of whiskey leaves him reckless enough to quit the roof and cross the open street.
Watching and being watched. Field glasses, the informer’s pointing finger, and the enemy’s eye on the match all show that every move on the roof is observed.
Falling. The cap, the rifles, the old woman and the enemy sniper all fall, each drop moving the story closer to the body in the street.
Conflicts
Person vs. person
The sniper and the enemy marksman duel across the street, each trying to kill the other first.
Person vs. self
After the kill, the sniper’s triumph turns to revulsion, and he has to pull himself together to get off the roof.
Person vs. society
The sniper is caught in a national conflict that sets Irish against Irish and, without his knowing, brother against brother.
Literary devices
- Situational irony
- The sniper’s greatest success of the night turns out to be the killing of his own brother.
- Suspense
- Short, plain sentences and a cat-and-mouse duel keep the reader unsure who will fire first.
- Third-person limited narration
- The narrator stays with the sniper and knows only what he knows, so the reader and the sniper learn the truth at the same moment.
- Foreshadowing
- His passing thought that he might have known the enemy, perhaps from before the army split, quietly prepares the final revelation.
- Imagery
- Moonlight on the river, muzzle flashes and a body tumbling from a roof make the night fighting easy to see and hear.
Important quotes
“Republicans and Free Staters were waging civil war.”
“They were deep and thoughtful, the eyes of a man, who is used to look at death.”
“The lust of battle died in him. He became bitten by remorse.”
“He was frightened back to his senses by the shock.”
“Perhaps he had been in his own company before the split in the army.”
“Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s face.”
The ending of The Sniper, explained
The ending of The Sniper takes only a few sentences and changes the meaning of everything before it. After killing the enemy marksman, the Republican feels his excitement drain away. Hungry, wounded and shaken, he is disgusted by the broken body in the street and by himself. His outburst ends when the revolver he throws down goes off and the bullet passes close to his head, and the scare brings him back to his senses. He drinks the rest of his whiskey and decides to report to his company commander. Down at street level, though, curiosity takes hold. He respects the dead man’s shooting and wonders whether they knew each other, perhaps as members of the same company before the army split. He runs across the street under machine-gun fire, lies down beside the corpse, turns it over, and sees that the dead man is his brother. The story stops there, with no word about what he feels. That silence does the work. O’Flaherty offers no speech about the war, and he does not need one. In the Irish Civil War, men who had fought together against British rule divided over the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and some families were split as well. The sniper’s wish to see his enemy’s face is the first time he treats that enemy as a person, and the answer shows that the enemy was never a stranger. Because the earlier thought about the army split prepares the twist, it reads as a consequence of the war rather than a mere trick. Readers weigh the ending differently. Some read it mainly as the tragedy of one family, while others see an allegory in which every Irishman killed by another Irishman is a brother. Opinions also differ about the sniper himself: his remorse suggests a conscience that survives, while his quick recovery, his laughter and his reckless dash across the street suggest how far the war has hardened him.
Common misreadings
MythThe sniper knows all along that the enemy is his brother.
ActuallyHe has no idea. He only wonders whether he might have known the man, and the discovery comes in the final sentence.
MythThe story is set during the Easter Rising or the war against Britain.
ActuallyIt is set during the Irish Civil War, when anti-Treaty Republicans fought the pro-Treaty Free State forces.
MythThe sniper kills the enemy with his rifle.
ActuallyHe drops his rifle into the street as part of his trick, and he kills the enemy sniper with his revolver.
Test yourself
1. Where is the Republican sniper positioned?
He keeps watch from a roof near O’Connell Bridge, with an enemy sniper across the street.
2. Who shows the armoured car where the sniper is hiding?
The old woman acts as an informer and points to his roof.
3. Where is the sniper wounded?
The enemy’s bullet lodges in the bone of his right forearm, so he cannot lift his rifle.
4. How does he trick the enemy sniper?
The enemy shoots the cap, sees it and the rifle fall, and stands up thinking he has won.
5. What does the sniper discover at the end?
When he turns the body over, he sees his brother’s face.
This story takes place in Dublin, Ireland, during a civil war, when Irish people were fighting each other. A young sniper hides on a roof at night, and another sniper on a roof across the street is trying to shoot him. After an old woman gives away his hiding place, the young sniper shoots two people, and then he is shot in the arm. He tricks the other sniper by putting his cap on his rifle and pretending he has been killed. When the other sniper stands up, the young man shoots him. He feels sick about it and goes down to the street to see who the enemy was. When he turns the body over, he sees that it is his own brother.
Flashcards flip, self-grade, and the deck remembers what you know
Nice work.
Compare & connect the story universe
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Another very short civil war story that saves its shattering revelation for the final lines.
All Quiet on the Western Front
The narrator’s anguish after killing a French soldier face to face mirrors the sniper’s revulsion once the enemy becomes a person.
The Interlopers
Two sworn enemies learn too late how little their feud meant, and a last-line twist seals their fate.
Araby
Another short Dublin story that ends on a sudden, painful moment of recognition.
Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper
💬 Discussion questions
- What happens at the end of The Sniper by Liam O’Flaherty
- Who is the enemy sniper in The Sniper
- What trick does the sniper use to fool his enemy
- How does The Sniper explore the theme of the cost of civil war?
- How does The Sniper explore the theme of the faceless enemy?
- What is the central conflict in The Sniper, and how does it shape the ending?
✎ Essay prompts
- Analyze how Liam O'Flaherty develops the theme of the cost of civil war in The Sniper. Support your argument with specific evidence from the text.
- Examine the significance of the cap on the rifle in The Sniper. What does it represent, and how does it deepen the work’s meaning?
- How does Liam O'Flaherty use situational irony to shape the reader’s experience of The Sniper?
- Some readers assume that the sniper knows all along that the enemy is his brother. Argue for or against this interpretation, using evidence from the text.
Key questions students ask
- What happens at the end of The Sniper by Liam O’Flaherty
- Who is the enemy sniper in The Sniper
- What trick does the sniper use to fool his enemy
- What is the setting of The Sniper
- Why does the sniper feel remorse after the killing
- What is the theme of The Sniper by Liam O’Flaherty
Analysis is original StoryBites commentary. Quotations are from Liam O’Flaherty’s The Sniper as printed in his collection Spring Sowing (London: Jonathan Cape, first published 1924), checked against the page images of the Internet Archive scan of that book. The story, first published in 1923, is in the public domain in the United States. O’Flaherty’s work remains under copyright in countries that protect it for 70 years after the author’s death, so we quote short passages only.