Serendipity is a wonderful thing. Without it, I would never have written A Little History of the Future of Dublin. Trevor White, director of the wonderful Little Museum of Dublin, had asked me to write an “essay” to accompany an exhibition tracing the city’s planning history from the 1660s onwards the futuristic visions put forward by different generations of Dubliners over the centuries. The 1660s might seem like a random place to start, but it isn’t. Prior to then, Dublin …
Category: History
Jo Kerrigan tells us how her latest book came about. Over the past twenty years or so, Richard and I have been exploring Ireland’s scenery and history for our books. …
Unconsecrated Ground If you want to find a cillín, you have to know what you are looking for. There will, in all likelihood, be no signpost or gate. It’s best …
“It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment’s carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer …
Wallis Simpson has always fascinated me, so to write a novel about her was an act of supreme self-indulgence! However, the Wallis I present in The Duchess is very different …
Books are living things. They are primarily vehicles for human stories. They carry our memory in print. At one point, in my new novel – The Pages – a library …
It all began with a reporter’s notebook and a murder, but by the time I’d finished, the story had expanded to encompass Irish land wars, adulterous love, a trans-Atlantic assassination …
I began writing The Seven Sisters series in 2013, and 1.2 million words later, I suddenly found myself about to write Book 7. The characters have been with me for …
How could it possibly be that a book which starts with a brutal murder in Arizona in 1915, before settling into an account of three more killings that took place …
I began the #ReadIrishWomenChallenge back in April 2019 as a way to spotlight great work by Irish female authors, and to start a conversation about their writing. Now that it’s …
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