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mullingar - thats what i went with (i think people may have said the cells arent contiguous, rather than not on straight line)

Ah OK, thanks, ukridge.

I have 43 cells, with 4 separate (but joined) blocks of 9, 26 (35 - the 3x3),4 and 4

Ukridge, there are more bars in rows 6 & 7

Thank you Muraria. It's our central blocks that differ.

Gitto, if what you say about rows six and seven is true, I must have made a mistake, but I can't see how my grid would assemble so perfectly if I have. Maybe I am missing something simple.

I think by now it's okay to say that in row six I have 14ac, which starts at column three and crosses the box, ending at the edge. If that is correct there can only be a bar between columns two and three, mirrored on the right.

In row seven, 16 starts in column one and ends in column seven, so a bar between seven and eight, mirrored on the left. Are these wrong? Would you mind emailing me, as you kindly did with cockie? I'm on ukrdge at me dot c om

Ukridge, the grid is nine columns wide. If you only have one seven-letter word in a row, there must be bars between the other two letters as well as at the beginning/end of the word, because they don’t form a two-letter word

Oh, Dodgepot, thank you for pinning down why I'm an idiot. I knew deep down that it had to be a case of me missing something really simple.

If it’s any consolation I think you were far from alone in missing that, ukridge

I was a bit late to the party on this. Only started today*. Know the topic reasonably well. Got the decoy, victim and attributes pretty much sorted but still got a few to solve, even though I'm pretty sure I know the changes to make as a result of knowing the above.

Even after earlier comments I can't parse my answer for 1a which appears to be a slightly modified last three words - I have a 3 letter abyss in it.

I think I know what the definition is to 13a too but despite earlier comment about the play's first part I am void of inspiration.

Tempted to just start colouring in, knowing what the end result looks like and how many cells it occupies!

* Have been grinding my teeth at Mash's offering in this month's Magpie.

1a - The odd looking 4 letter word comes from a very short expression of puzzlement (you're right about the def).
13a - Your modification could be applied to the beginning or end of the clue, granama1, but 'ship' gives the final 3 letters of the wordplay.

Thanks drxx. That parses 1a (not a particularly good clue methinks and it seems pretty crucial..but perhaps not as crucial as I might think....).

On we go...!