What does it mean to love — and leave — Ireland? 4 prominent Irish writers reflect on their journeys
Michael Collins, Claire Keegan, Colum McCann and Nuala O'Faolain spoke with Eleanor Wachtel in 2003
As Writers & Company wraps up after a remarkable 33-year run, we're revisiting episodes selected from the show's archive. This interview originally aired in 2003.
In May 2003, Eleanor Wachtel brought together four writers from the Republic of Ireland: Michael Collins, Claire Keegan, Colum McCann and Nuala O'Faolain at the Victoria Literary Arts Festival in B.C. Speaking to a sold-out crowd of more than 400, they discussed their home country, experiences of emigration, Irish history and its effect on their writing.
Nuala O'Faolain on immigration as a transformative writing experience
Nuala O'Faolain was born in 1940, the second of nine children, and grew up in County Dublin. She won scholarships to University College Dublin and to Oxford and worked as a television producer for the BBC and for Irish Television for many years.
Her first acclaimed work was her memoir Are You Somebody? The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman. Her other books include the novel My Dream of You and another memoir called Almost There: The Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman. O'Faolain died in 2008, at the age of 68.
"I told my editor, 'I'm going to America to try to write a novel.' And I did. I went to New York and I got a room, a very cheap room behind a Mexican restaurant. And when I started the first bit of this novel I was trying to write, at the top I wrote 'A.M.D.G.', which means Ad maiorem Dei gloriam: to the greater glory of God. Not because I particularly believe that there's a God who cares whether I'm writing a novel or not, but because I was saying, 'this is a solemn undertaking,'" she said.
These places, these cities, these North American cities are about self transformation.- Nuala O'Faolain
"That's why I've moved from everywhere I know and everything I know to sit in this miserable kip of a room until something happens. And it did. It took two years.
"I could think of 6,000 reasons why I couldn't write a novel in Ireland. But you move to New York or to one of the great Canadian cities or to San Francisco or Boston — what are they made of but people who came there to do something they couldn't do at home? What are they made of but hope and optimism?
"These places, these cities, these North American cities are about self transformation. And so that's the place to go if you're nearly 60 and you're trying to do something that, as far as you know, you can't do."
Colum McCann on changing attitudes toward leaving Ireland
Colum McCann was born in 1965 in Deansgrange, South County Dublin, where he studied journalism. He worked in New York and Dublin and then, when he was 21, he went back to the United States, where he has lived ever since. He now lives in New York.
McCann has written several books, including Apeirogon, TransAtlantic and the U.S. National Book Award-winning Let the Great World Spin, which made him the first Irish-born writer to win the prize. His new book is called American Mother.
"I don't think immigration exists in the same way for Irish people anymore as it did for the last 150 years. It used to be that when you emigrated, you'd have an Irish wake, which means that they would have a party for you — they'd have your funeral, but there'd be one extra person there. And then you would go off the next morning on the ship and you knew that you weren't coming home. It was very, very poignant," he said.
I left because I was curious and I'd been reading Kerouac and Ferlinghetti and Burroughs. I wanted to see this sort of mythical land.- Colum McCann
"There's no poignancy and no need for such poignancy anymore when we have what [Irish novelist Joseph] O'Connor calls a 'commuter generation,' because I can be in Dublin from New York in seven hours.
"It's just become smaller. It's become different and because of the prosperity and so on, you don't emigrate for the same reasons. I left because I was curious and I'd been reading Kerouac and Ferlinghetti and Burroughs. I wanted to see this sort of mythical land. But others left because they had to."
Claire Keegan on the Irish need to tell stories
Claire Keegan was born in 1969 and grew up on a farm in Wicklow, Ireland. She studied English and Political Science at Loyola University in New Orleans and got a Masters in Writing at the University of Wales in Cardiff.
Keegan's first book of stories, Antarctica, won many awards, including the William Trevor Prize and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Her other works include Walk the Blue Fields, Foster and Small Things Like These, which won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. A movie adaptation was released in February 2024, starring Emily Watson and Oscar winner Cillian Murphy.
Her latest collection is So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men.
"I think it's something to do with a love of gossip, begrudgery, humour and bitterness. And I do think that there's a contentious nature that's genetic and rebellious and it just makes for good fiction. But that comes down to language and the music of the language," she said.
It's something to do with a love of gossip, begrudgery, humour and bitterness.... There's a contentious nature that's genetic and rebellious and it just makes for good fiction.- Claire Keegan
"The North for us was the draft coming under the door. It was the thing on the TV that you wanted to be over so you could get on to local news and get the weather. But it was always there and because it was never spoken of, that actually gave it more power for me as a writer. I would be wary to write about it, because I have a fear of not knowing the language, of not knowing enough, of just having that outsider's view."
Michael Collins on the subtleties of love in Irish writing
Michael Collins was born in Limerick in 1964, the great grandson of the Irish freedom fighter Michael Collins. In the early 1970s, his family moved to Dublin. He traveled extensively between Europe and the United States, eventually settling in Bellingham, Washington.
His third novel, The Keepers of Truth, was shortlisted for the 2000 Booker Prize, and his most recent novel is The New Existence.
"Part of being an Irish writer is that there is that level [of emotion] of which we're not allowed to talk about. A lot of times, your stories are just trying to go down to this other domain where you tap into the unspoken language that's in the culture," he said.
You leave Ireland with anger and pain... But you come back and you're just trying to find, where is the goodness? Where is the grace in it? I think that's why I write.- Michael Collins
"I mean, if the language [of expressing love and emotion] is just not available, you as a writer need to say, 'here's the subtext and here's what people wanted to say' and use the subterfuge, so that [your characters] don't run around and start hugging each other, but you somehow come up with the metaphors and the images that show you that there is a life and a love there.
"I think that's kind of the profound thing, is that you leave Ireland with anger and pain and a variety of other things. But you come back and you're just trying to find, where is the goodness? Where is the grace in it? And I think that's why I write — to go back and just look for these metaphors, look for these images that do tap into what's great about the country."
Comments have been edited for length and clarity.
This interview first aired in 2003 and was produced by Mary Stinson
