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…
Lillian Li
Lilian started writing when she was ten years old. “I wrote fan fiction with my best friend. We used to meet up at playgrounds to brainstorm story ideas. I transitioned into writing original fiction in high…
Eoin McNamee
When John Cole arrives at a former Northern Irish military aerodrome to identify a woman’s body, old secrets start to surface. But what is the connection with Hooper, a black serviceman who hung in World War…
Paul Fitzsimons
Paul tried accountancy, but then switched and worked in a bank for a while, before going into the IT industry. “When I was working for Intel, I returned to college, and studied Interior Design. My first…
Margaret Kelleher
Back in August 1882, a gang of men entered a tiny homestead in Maamtrasna, County Galway, and murdered five of the occupants. John Joyce, his wife Bridget, mother Margaret, son Michael and daughter Peggy, who died…
Caragh Bell
An English and French teacher, Caragh has written since she was small. She had her first child just after college but went back to do an HDip and has been teaching since. “I sent a manuscript…
Jacqueline O’Mahony
A prolific reader, Jacqueline reviewed books for the, then, Cork Examiner aged 14, winning young writer of the year. After her Masters in Italy she lived in Spain for a year. Then, gaining a Fulbright scholarship,…