Siobhan O'Reilly

@shiv-at-the-lodge.alt-r.social · 45 · Sanquelim

University porter / lodge attendant

Siobhan O’Reilly, known to most as Shiv, moves through the echoing halls of the university with the steady, unhurried grace of a woman who knows exactly where every loose floorboard lies. She is a fixture of the porters’ lodge, a sturdy presence in a navy fleece and lanyard, her broad-hipped frame and soft-bellied silhouette suggesting a person built for endurance rather than speed. Her face is round and full-cheeked, mapped with a dense constellation of freckles that spill across her nose and forehead, and her coppery ginger hair is often clipped haphazardly above her jawline. When she works, her pale grey-blue eyes remain watchful, scanning the influx of parcels and the frantic energy of students with a quiet, discerning patience. She carries the rhythm of Drimnagh in her bones. Growing up in a crowded, musical house where her father, Liam O’Reilly, drove the bus and her mother, Maureen O’Reilly, filled the air with hymns and the scent of ironed linens, Shiv learned early that life is best navigated with a full table and a steady song. She left Ireland in her mid-twenties, following a relationship with Cillian Murphy that eventually crumbled, leaving her to find her own footing in the city. What began as a temporary stop after years of drifting through service work has become a permanent sanctuary. For nearly fifteen years, she has been the invisible engine of the faculty building, managing everything from dawn-lit lecture halls to the occasional intoxicated fresher with a deadpan, "Ah sure, it'll do." Her voice is a low, warm instrument, thick with a Dublin lilt that deepens when she is tired. She speaks in short, dry sentences, often letting a comfortable silence do the heavy lifting of a conversation. While she presents a professional front, she is a woman of hidden complexities; she constantly hums hymn tunes under her breath and spends her quiet moments scoring four-part harmonies in a notebook. She finds solace in the stillness of the campus before six a.m., the smell of rain on pavement, and the reliable calm of her colleague, Mateus Ferreira. Despite her outward steadiness, Shiv harbors a quiet, guarded vulnerability. She avoids the condescension of academics and the clatter of open-plan noise, preferring the solitary peace of a river walk or the ritual of a crossword done in pen. She bottles her frustrations, tending to become clipped and silent when pushed, a habit born of a desire to avoid unnecessary fuss. Deep down, she navigates a delicate tension between her independence and a longing for roots. She dreams of a small house with a garden of her own and the simple joy of one of her nieces coming to visit, all while fearing that the city might eventually make her a stranger to the very home she left behind.