In her first podcast interview since winning the An Post Irish Book of the Year award for 2020, Doireann Ní Ghríofa describes how she shares her life with a famous 18th century widow – Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill.

When she began the literary detective work that resulted in A Ghost in the Throat, Doireann began to feel a strong sense of Eibhlín Dubh’s presence.

Her book is an original and compelling work which pays tribute to a passionate love affair that ended in tragedy. It traces the life of Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, an Irish noblewoman and poet – composer of Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire or The Lament For Art O’Leary, which she recited over her husband’s dead body.

Composed in Irish and translated later into English, it outlines how she eloped with a dashing cavalryman, murdered in 1773 by a tyrannical landowner.

Doireann tells the City of Books podcast that she was quite a lonesome child and young mother but since becoming immersed in the story “I haven’t felt so lonesome – I have the sense that she’s with me”.

More information: https://tramppress.com/product/a-ghost-in-the-throat-by-doireann-ni-ghriofa/

Writer Eoin McNamee blurs fact and fiction to produce art, whether exploring the activities of secret intelligence agencies or speculating on why Princess Diana died in a high speed car accident.

His 17 novels are gritty and poetic – beautifully written noir – and have earned him a Booker nomination. But they sometimes attract criticism for being near the knuckle, although he sees that as their function, he tells podcast host Martina Devlin.

He also writes episodes for Valhalla, the Vikings spinoff for Netflix.

His most recent novel, The Vogue, is set in Northern Ireland where a corpse is dug up, and other secrets uncovered along with it. “Writing should be transgressive," he says.

The Vogue is published by Faber. More info here:

https://www.faber.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/index/order/date_of_publication/dir/desc/q/Eoin+McNamee/

City of Books is funded by the Arts Council and supported by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature and the Museum of Literature Ireland

Writer Emma Donoghue tells City of Books how she wrote an Oscar-nominated script working with director Lenny Abrahamson on Room.

She also talks about her latest novel The Pull of the Stars set during the 1918 flu pandemic – with parallels that sound a familiar note today.

For more on Emma’s book: https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/emma-donoghue/the-pull-of-the-stars/9781529046151

City of Books is hosted by Martina Devlin

Music by Daragh Dukes

Supported by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature and MOLI The Museum of Literature Ireland

Ireland's man in Washington, Ambassador Daniel Mulhall, talks us through the rhyme and reason of poetry - and how literature can act as a cultural bridge. He practises what he preaches by tweeting daily poems.

Also in this episode, Professor Chris Morash of Trinity College Dublin discusses who's in the shakeup for a valued and valuable award: the Dublin International Literature Prize worth €100,000.

Produced and presented by Martina Devlin.

Music by Daragh Dukes

Lemn Sissay shoots from the hip and speaks from the heart in this interview about mother and baby homes, the Black Lives Matter campaign and his experience in the British care system.  

“My name was changed, I was treated as property,” the poet and playwright Lemn tells City of Books presenter Martina Devlin.

Lemn was born in a mother and baby home in England to an Ethiopian mother, fostered out and returned to care at the age of 12 - as he tells in his powerful memoir My Name Is Why. But poetry gave him a sense of belonging in a world he couldn't fathom.

More info: www.lemnsissay.com

Richard Ford is listing his failures. He wanted to be a lawyer in the US Marines. That didn’t work out. He wanted to be "a lawyer, period”. That didn’t work out. He became a writer – that certainly counts as a success for the Pulitzer Prize winner.

Even so, between novels and short story collections he sometimes thought he was through with fiction and imagined doing other jobs.

But he kept going, he tells Martina Devlin in the City of Books podcast for Dublin UNESCO City of Literature. And that’s been the case for half a century.

Although when he’s between books, he claims to “flounce” around finding reasons not to work.

Sorry For Your Trouble is his latest book, a short story collection published by Bloomsbury.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/sorry-for-your-trouble-9781526620026/

Produced+presented by Martina Devlin with music by Daragh Dukes

Doyenne of domestic noir Liz Nugent’s work has an army of fans including Graham Norton, who describes her latest hit Our Little Cruelties as part rollercoaster, part maze.

Here, Liz talks about coping with pain stemming from a childhood brain haemorrhage, and overcoming challenges large and small – such as typing all her work one-handed: “Shakespeare wrote all his plays one-handed with a feather,” she says.

She also reveals the identity of her favourite fictional antihero (clue: he’s sexy but mean). Produced and presented by Martina Devlin with music by Daragh Dukes. More about Liz’s books here:

https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/77895/liz-nugent.html

Writer Colum McCann talks about his hope that his book, Apeirogon, may contribute to peace. It fictionalises the true story of two fathers, an Israeli and a Palestinian, who each lose a child in the conflict.

Elsewhere in the interview, Colum says he can’t write poetry but is drawn to it, and talks about writers he has known including Frank McCourt and Benedict Kiely. He also reads from his novel.

Produced and presented by author and journalist Martina Devlin. Music by Daragh Dukes.

:: Apeirogon is published by Bloomsbury https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/apeirogon-9781526607874/

The Maamtrasna murders were sparked by a blood feud in a remote part of 19th century Ireland. A family of five was killed by neighbours - but the trial proved to be just as notorious as the murders. It was held in English and some of the defendants, who were from Connemara, could not speak the language.

Professor Margaret Kelleher of University College Dublin and Mr Justice Peter Kelly, president of Ireland's High Court, discuss the case and political context in Dublin's historic Green Street courthouse, scene of the trial.

Presented and produced by author and journalist Martina Devlin

For more on Margaret Kelleher’s book The Maamtrasna Murders: Language, Life and Death in Nineteenth-Century Ireland follow the link:

https://www.ucdpress.ie/display.asp?isbn=9781910820421&

Three Fs have been a consistent part of international bestseller Joanna Trollope's life:

Fiction, family and feminism. She explains why here.

The international bestseller says, “There will always be women who want to stay at home in the kitchen and make jam tarts with the three-year-old, and there will always be women who want to rule the world.”

Which kind is she?

And why does Jane Austen inspire her?

This episode also includes a tribute to poet extraordinaire Eavan Boland from writer Colum McCann.

For more on Joanna Trollope’s latest novel Mum & Dad follow the link https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/joanna-trollope/mum-dad/9781529003383

For more on Joanna Trollope follow the link https://www.joannatrollope.com

Presented and Produced by Martina Devlin

Music by Daragh Dukes