Brian Coughlan
After his degree in science, Brian specialised in pharmaceuticals, and has been working in the sector ever since. “I worked for Glaxo Smith Klein in Cork for many years, and then moved to Mylan in Galway.”…
Eleanor O’Reilly
After university, Eleanor went straight into teaching. “I did my teaching practice in Loretto Foxrock. Afterwards they gave me a job, and I was there for two years. Then, in 2001, I moved to Gorey Community…
Sarah Davis Goff
Sarah Davis-Goff is bubbling over with happiness. It showed the moment we met to discuss her dystopian debut novel – last ones left alive. She’s animated as she tells me of her passion for the story,…
Jenny McCartney
Brought up near Belfast the youngest of four, Jenny attended Oxford University, and then she moved to Prague for 18 months. “I worked as a proof reader on the Prague Post, then, after a short time…
Aoife Abbey
Aoife Abbey has always wanted to be a doctor – it was a decision she took as a small child growing up in Dublin, but until she entered medical school in Warwick, and went on to…
Christine Dwyer Hickey
Reading The Narrow Land – a novel set in post-war Cape Cod – is like experiencing the work of Scott F. Fitzgerald. There’s that same atmospheric sense of long hot summers, with people extracting as much…
Mary Jennings
Mary was a studious kid and wasn’t interested in sport. After college, she joined the IT department of Price Waterhouse Cooper becoming a management consultant. She spent a lot of time in London, and friends introduced…
Jane Ryan
Learning to read at 3, Jane was devouring Agatha Christie at nine. Wanting to act, she was accepted at RADA, but her father persuaded her to become an accountant. “I studied with the Institute of Chartered…
Nicole Flattery
Nicole wrote ‘bad poetry’ and some stories as a teenager but stopped when she went to college. “I was a better reader than a writer. And I did a lot of theatre as a teenager. I…
Tana French
It’s twelve years since I interviewed Tana French for her first crime book, the multi-prize winning, Into The Woods, and we’ve not met since. This, in itself, is unusual, since the publishing scene in Dublin is…
Antoinette Tyrrell
Antoinette has had a lifelong obsession with Anglo-Irish large houses. She wrote a paper on Ballindoolin, in County Kildare for history degree. But it wasn’t until she started a third manuscript that she thought of setting…
Patricia Gibney
Patricia and I meet in The Clayton Hotel in Dublin. She’s spent the night there after a book club event but didn’t get a whole lot of sleep. The reason? Back in Mullingar, her daughter was…