The Irish Itinerary Podcast

In her conversation with Lucy Cullen, Sharon Dempsey reads from and discusses her novel Who Took Eden Mulligan? (2021). She also talks about how her critical work as a PhD candidate influences her creative work; how crime fiction is the best genre to deal with unresolved issues from the past, and to negotiate class and gender inequalities – in general, and in Northern Ireland in particular; how she often draws on tropes from other genres, such as horror and the gothic; and how the choice of form really depends on the theme of the story.  

In his conversation with Irene De Angelis, Joseph Woods discusses his time as director of Poetry Ireland; his nomadic life and how linguistic and self-chosen exile helped him find his voice as a poet; his various poetry volumes and their connections to people and places; his work with the Mashonaland Irish Association while living in Harare, Zimbabwe; and his life as a jobbing writer and how 90 percent of the work is showing up. He also talks about his current PhD project, a work based on the life of Maurice Collis, and his forthcoming poetry collection.  

In her conversation with Hedwig Schwall, Sheila Armstrong discusses and reads from her first novel Falling Animals (2023). Sheila talks about the neoliberalism at the core of her novel; about how we went from small scale, traditional industries to much bigger, largely hidden industries we have little understanding of; about how she uses small, but striking details from real life to create whole worlds; about the importance of forgiveness and how guilt and shame are central to her novel; about fiction being an attempt to bridge the gap between people and try and understand how others feel; about the potential of liminal spaces and leaving threads we do not get answers for; and about how finding the right sentence feels like a door is gently closing.  

In his conversation with Helen Cullen, Gavin McCrea discusses Irishness and how writing has been important in the process of going away from and coming to terms with Ireland. McCrea also talks about creating a voice for women without a voice in his novels Mrs Engels (2015) and The Sisters Mao (2021); about how he starts writing from the materiality of his characters’ world, not only in historical fiction, but also in his memoir Cells (2022); about exploring the relationship with his mother in his earlier novels and in his memoir; and about ”looking outwards” as a writer from a small island. He also reads from his three books.  

In his conversation with Marisol Morales-Ladrón, Denis Rafter discusses his career as an actor, director and theatre artist in Spain; the fact that sometimes he feels like a fish out of water, struggling to express himself and to break down language barriers. He explains that these obstacles are what inspires and motivates him and that by blending his three cultural influences, from Ireland, England and Spain, he brings a unique vision in his approach to using theatre as the common language to communicate the universality of human feelings. Denis Rafter also reads one of his poems and two theatre fragments from his work. 

In his conversation with Nathalie Lamprecht, Alan Gilsenan discusses his documentary film The Laughing Boy (2022), which tries to uncover how the song The Laughing Boy, written by a young Brendan Behan and later used in his play The Hostage, travelled via Paris to Greece and there became an anthem of defiance for the Greek left. Gilsenan discusses the circumstances that facilitated this process; the importance of translation and the way the documentary draws attention to it; the image of Behan as a kind of James Dean that obscures his talent as a writer; and Brendan Behan’s collaboration with theatre director Joan Littlewood.  

In their conversation with Kate Huber, Paul Rowley and Nicky Gogan talk about their documentaries Seaview (2008), Build Something Modern (2011) and The Red Tree (2018). They discuss their journey into filmmaking and how they met; Seaview’s experimental style, which challenges the aesthetics of documentaries while foregrounding the asylum seekers’ experiences; the community projects they did with residents of the DP centre in Mosney while making that documentary; the inverse connection between Seaview and Build Something Modern; the similarities between editing documentaries and writing scripts; and their future projects. 

www.stillfilms.org

 https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2022.2157311

https://katehuber.org/

Audio clip curtesy of Still Films

In her conversation with Auxiliadora Pérez-Vides, Catherine Dunne discusses how stories have the power to change the minds of people; how she wants her characters to speak for themselves and how she allows them to inhabit her while writing. She also talks about her novel A Name for Himself (1998); about how silence and not having a choice are two parts of the same coin; about the renaissance of Irish women writers in Northern-Ireland; and about her projects for the near future.

In his conversation with Michael G Cronin, Barry McCrea discusses the genesis of his novel The First Verse (2005); the influence of Latin-American magical realism and other non-English literary works on both the story and style of the novel; the clash between the unlimited inner lyrical self and the limited real world; the dangers of solipsistic reading; real and literary cities; and his current literary project.  

In her conversation with Eleanor Lybeck, Zoë Seaton discusses the history of Big Telly Theatre Company; their response to the pandemic; and their use of technology. She also talks about making work, with and relevant to the community, that is time and site specific, and because of that universal; about recording this type of immediate work; and about making immersive, interactive and surprising theatre based on the idea that ‘magic can happen anywhere’.

Brick Moon: https://explore.brick-moon.com/welcome/ 

In her conversation with Charles Armstrong, Vivienne Roche talks about being a sculptor first; the influence of her father and the language of engineering on her work; sculpture’s potential for abstraction and her interest in architecture; working with the hidden archeology of a site and the research this involves; the importance of space, materiality and social context in her sculptures; and her collaborations with Sebastian Barry and Derek Mahon, in particular the Lighthouse project.  

Vivienne Roche's works can be viewed on http://www.vivienneroche.com/. 

In his conversation with Laoighseach Ní Choistealbha, Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin talks about the story at the origin of his novel Madame Lazare (2021); the importance of memory, narrative and folklore in his novel and the relationship between religion and story-telling; the multilingual nature of Madame Lazare; children as interesting unreliable narrators; and the novel’s forthcoming translations.  

In their conversation with Jessica Bundschuh, Padraig Regan reads from old and new work and discusses Timothy Morton’s work on ecology. Padraig also discusses their scepticism towards the concept of ‘nature’, their interest in embodiment and how eating makes us confront the actual, material fact of our bodies; the landscape as a genre of image and how its grammar encodes our attitude to how we occupy the world; the egotism of lyric poetry; metaphor and metonymy; and the endings of volumes and poems.  

In her conversation with M. Teresa Caneda-Cabrera, Evelyn Conlon discusses the impact of the lockdowns and her aversion to ‘doomscrolling’; being a writer who is a feminist and being political by engaging in stories that are not considered the norm; using literature to dip into the corridors of truth while history sticks to the facts; reworking Joyce’s story ‘Two Gallants’; and being more Irish when you are away from Ireland. The author also reads two excerpts from her work. 

In this special Bloomsday conversation with Carolina P. Amador-Moreno, Nuala O’Connor discusses the research for her novel Nora (2021); her rewritings of Joyce's letters; her search for Nora Barnacle’s voice; the difficulty of finding a balance between the flavour and authenticity of a language and just too many convoluted constructions; the beauty of Irish prose and how it is perceived in the US; and the language of her childhood and how she co-opts it in her fiction as a way to honour that language and her parents. Nuala O'Connor also reads a short excerpt from her novel Nora and introduces us to her new project about a historic maverick woman from Cork. 

In her conversation with Alessandra Boller, Mary Morrissy discusses the elasticity of short story fiction; her recent turn to flash fiction; the differences between her ‘exploded novel’ Prosperity Drive (2016) and her upcoming short story cycle 20/20 Vision; her new speculative historical novel on Nora Barnacle, whom she describes as a prisoner of Joyce’s fiction; and she ponders whether writing means plundering other people’s lives. Mary Morrissy also reads the story ‘Girls in Trouble’ from her unpublished collection 20/20 Vision and an extract from her new novel Penelope Unbound. 

In her conversation with Chris Cusack, Caoilinn Hughes reads her poem ‘The Party Faithful’ and discusses being a slow reader and a monotasker and how this has influenced her journey from poetry to prose and makes her a writer of sentences, who favours participation and reciprocity in her relationship to the reader. Among other things, she talks about the similarities in the work of scientists and artists; the themes of family and love that pervade her work; the mislabelling of her first, picaresque, novel Orchid & the Wasp (2018); her tragic, very good-looking characters; the ending of The Wild Laughter (2020); the importance of the setting in a novel; and her identity as an Irish author. 

 In her conversation with Radvan Markus, Kateřina García discusses growing up in a multilingual space, surrounded by the work of her great-grandfather Alphonse Mucha; singing in multiple languages and especially Irish; capturing fragile and fleeting moments in her songs; working with various talented musicians; bringing the cultural and literary aspect into her linguistic research on Judeo-Spanish through her interest for traditional Sephardic music and its links with identity; and the journey behind some of her music, of which we hear three examples in this episode. 

In his conversation with Caroline Lusin, Michael Hughes reads from his novel Country (2018) and discusses his journey from actor to writer; the ludic element in his writing; his relationship to Northern Ireland and its authors; the link between the intangible Irish border and mime in his short story "Marcel Marceau"; as well as the Illiadic structure, lingo, distinct narrative voice, and the representation of power structures and violence in his novel Country.

In his conversation with Lance Pettitt, Visiting Professor in Irish Studies at the University of Wuppertal, Lenny Abrahamson explores the challenges of creating dramatic stories for television, showing how - in his view - the aesthetics, structures and intimacy of  film and TV intersect in the compelling viewing experience that is the  hallmark of a hit show. He talks about the upcoming series Conversations with Friends and about how we can recognize the themes, form and patterns of Normal People, while at the same time Conversations with Friends pushes further and strives to be a more polyphonic story. Lenny discusses working in a creative and generous environment with, among others, writer Alice Birch and director Leanne Welham; trying to render the characters’ experiences in a truthful way; giving the audience the feeling of being inside the frame; and thinking of episodes as small films. He also lifts the veil on some of the projects he is currently working on.