Loudheart

Her voice went viral without her permission. Reclaiming it will require more than proving the clip was edited.

Seven seconds made Aoife O’Rourke Galway’s newest villain.
A viral audio clip appears to show seventeen-year-old Aoife mocking Niall Kavanagh’s stammer. By the time she realises the recording has been edited, thousands of strangers have already decided who she is—and her best friend Maeve knows far more about the original than she admits.
Three months later, Aoife is keeping her head down at her family’s takeaway when a school punishment sends her to Sea Road Rooms, a leaking youth centre threatened with redevelopment.
Hidden inside is an abandoned radio booth.
With dry-witted sound technician Finn Daly and a group of young people tired of having their stories taken from them, Aoife helps create Loudheart: a broadcast where every contributor chooses what is heard, who may listen and when access ends.
But systems are only as trustworthy as the people running them.
As the fight to save Sea Road Rooms becomes public and another betrayal threatens everything they have built, Aoife must decide whether reclaiming her voice means proving she was innocent—or telling the harder truth about harm, accountability and who gets to own a story.
Set against Galway’s storm-bright coast, Loudheart is a sharp and emotionally layered contemporary YA novel about viral shame, friendship betrayal, first love, community and the courage to be heard without surrendering control