Tell us about your new book, Great Irish Wives
It was a middle-of-the-night idea. I was wondering what to write next and considered a biography, maybe Daniel O’Connell or Wolfe Tone. I remembered that Tone had fallen in love with his wife, Matilda, on Grafton Street. I wondered if Daniel O’Connell was married and, within minutes, the idea came to me – to take Ireland’s most famous men from history and tell their wives’ stories, including the role the women played in their husband’s glory and achievements.
Do you have a favourite?
I fell in love with each woman as I uncovered her story, but if I had to choose one, Sinéad de Valera, perhaps because she also wrote books for children. However, I will forever remember working on Annette Carson’s chapter, who was married to Edward Carson, as I had to pause her story when my husband, Niall, was diagnosed with terminal cancer on November 27th, 2024.
Your late husband helped inspire the book. Did this experience make you appreciate the character of the many widows in your work?
I started this book as a wife without any idea that I would be a widow by the time the book went to print. It is only now that I appreciate how my relationship with this book has evolved. The book is written but as I go out and talk about the women, I feel a keener understanding of those wives – even the ones who died before their husbands. It might sound like a song title but these 10 women, along with losing my husband, have given me a newfound respect for the power of love.
The book was launched by Blanaid Behan, whose mother, Beatrice, features in it. Tell us about them
I am a shy person and took ages to convince myself that I should contact Blanaid about her mother. We had a wonderful phone call during which she confessed her delight that someone was writing about Beatrice. She kindly agreed to speak at the launch, and the night before, I met her and her husband, Matthew, for dinner. It felt strange to be doing this alone, we should have been a party of four. I walked in, wondering if I would recognise Blanaid and saw a woman who was the image of Beatrice and Brendan Behan. They were great company and completely put me at my ease. I sing with the Gary Kelly Cancer Support Choir, and we performed three songs at the launch, including her father’s The Auld Triangle just for Blanaid. That was very special.
RM Block
You’ve written several histories and works of historical fiction. What is your fascination with the past?
Like most things in my life, it started through my love of reading. I fell in love with history in primary school, through reading historical novels like Children on the Oregon Trail by AR Van der Loeff and Anne Frank’s diary. I love writing historical fiction for children as it’s an opportunity to hook readers on storytelling while also teaching them about a historical episode, making it come alive for them.
Titanic: True Stories of Her Passengers, Crew and Legacy and your debut novel, Spirit of the Titanic, both looked at the tragic liner. Was it a challenge to tackle such a well-worn subject?
I was daunted when Michael O’Brien asked me to write a children’s novel about the Titanic. Even as I said yes, I was bewildered over how to tell a story that everyone knew inside out. Then I remembered reading that the very first Titanic death had happened two years before the ship went to sea. On April 20th, 1910, 15-year-old Samuel Scott, a catch boy (junior member of the rivet team), fell 26ft down the side of Titanic, in Harland and Wolff shipyard, and died. I had found my main character.
Thanks to the research I had done for the novel, Titanic: True Stories of Her Passengers, Crew and Legacy was relatively easy to write. The biggest difference between the two was sourcing photographs for the history book and that was a learning experience.
Which projects are you working on?
I am dealing with writer’s block since Niall’s funeral, and it’s terrifying, the feeling that I have lost who I am, and was, alongside my husband. The only writing I have managed to do, aside from getting Great Irish Wives to print, is document this first year of widowhood in my journal. I have been keeping diaries since I was six years old and have a shelf of them in my writing shed. Keeping a journal provides me with an anchor when I can do nothing else.
What is the best writing advice you have heard?
Harold Evans was, among many other things, Maya Angelou’s editor. I read his memoir years ago, My Paper Chase, and never forgot this one line of advice to any writer struggling with a first draft: Type, don’t write.
You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?
I would make it illegal for any landlord or nursing home to force someone to get rid of their pet in order to be accommodated.
Which public event affected you most?
RTÉ’s 1916 commemoration in 2016 really got to me. I was in awe at the music and reconstruction of the shootings in Kilmainham Gaol. It was an incredible piece of theatre that left me in tears long after the credits rolled.
Your most treasured possession?
Niall’s wedding ring.
Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?
CS Lewis to talk about grief and writing. Ann Patchett because I read somewhere that she makes a wonderful apple pie. Brendan Behan for the stories, and AE Russell to discuss the supernatural and the afterlife.
Your favourite quotation?
Everything always works out for the best.
Who is your favourite fictional character?
That’s impossible to answer but my longest relationship with a character has been with Little Women’s Jo March, by Louisa May Alcott. She is probably why I wanted to be a writer, and I continue to reread that book today.
A book to make me laugh?
Any of the Adrian Mole diary series.
A book that might move me to tears?
A few years ago, I read, or inhaled, the diaries of Jean Lucey Pratt, A Notable Woman, and so enjoyed her company that when I read the last entry, written shortly before she died, I sobbed for hours as if having lost my very best friend. I recommended the diaries to a few people. Darrinagh, one of my oldest friends, loved it as much as I did. On finishing it, her husband found her in tears and could not understand how she was crying over a book.
The most remarkable place you have visited?
I am just back from a short visit to Reykjavik after my friend Irene invited me to accompany her to the book festival, Iceland Noir. We hired a car and drove out to see beyond the city lights. I will never forget it. There is magic in the air, the landscape was vast and flat and barren, and then these ancient towering mountains would appear on the horizon, harbouring majestic waterfalls.
What was the standout story for you in O’Connell Street: The History and Life of Dublin’s Iconic Street?
Perhaps my favourite is Cyril Cusack, Liam O’Leary and future president Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh causing chaos in the Savoy Cinema in 1930, protesting at the over-the-top stereotyping of Irish people in the film Smiling Irish Eyes. The manager, an English man, lamented to the audience about the three men breaking into his cinema while they responded about him and his kind breaking into their country and then the trio broke into song.
Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend?
I love writers’ memoirs and just finished Hannah Kent’s Love Letter to Iceland, about her relationship with Iceland and the writing of her novel, Burial Rites.
I confess that I have never gotten into podcasts as I prefer to listen to music when out walking.
I watch films every weekend, something Niall and I started in lockdown. Friday and Saturdays meant takeaways, wine and films. I am carrying on that tradition. I love old westerns and war films, British and American. One of my top five films is Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, and every year I revisit the Lord of the Rings series and the original Star Wars trilogy.
What is the most beautiful book that you own?
When researching JP Morgan for the Titanic history book – he financed the building of the ship – I read that he also sponsored big art projects such as photographer Edward Curtiss’s massive 20-book series, The North American Indian, spanning the years 1907 to 1930. I looked at pictures of those books online and resigned myself to never seeing one in person. Niall and I went to Amsterdam and stumbled upon a huge Sunday morning book market. As we walked through, I felt my left ear throb and looked left to see one of those books, albeit a reproduction. I think I might have screamed a little. The guy on the stall only wanted €20 for this wonderful book. It was quite a squeeze getting it into the suitcase.
Great Irish Wives (O’Brien Press) won History Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards
