News Editor John O’Connor sits down with Ireland’s new Laureate for Irish Fiction to tell us what she will bring to the laureateship.
When Dr. Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, who has just been appointed Laureate for Irish Fiction by the Arts Council of Ireland, started researching where the writers can be found dotted around the country “it seemed as though most of the [Irish] writers were in the cities or congregated around the coast - I wondered why that was.”
“I started to look at the counties to try and find the writers. We all know writers from Dublin, Cork, Galway, Kerry, Belfast. When you start going into [the Midlands] you start to think, do I even know writers from these counties, and the answer is mostly no.”
It was upon Dr. Ní Dhuibhne’s realisation of a vacuum of literary representation from these particular counties that the idea was born to travel across Ireland and visit every county so she could “maybe discuss a book or a few books, a contemporary one, one from the past”, to promote Irish writing in the counties out of the literary spotlight.
Dr. Ní Dhuibhne is still considering ways to make the role her own and will be the fourth Laureate for Irish Fiction, following Colm Toíbín, Sebastian Barry, and the inaugural Laureate Anne Enright. A list of writers Dr. Ní Dhuibhne finds “deeply flattering” to be recognised alongside. In response to how she plans to put her own individualistic and singularly creative mark on the role, Dr. Ní Dhuibhne said:
‘What I will bring that’s different [to the laureateship] is the two languages. Gaeilge as well as English. I think that will be one of the differences [....] My interest in oral tradition and folklore will also be something I bring to it. Maybe not unique at all but I’m interested in other European languages and culture, especially the ones I know. I’m still not sure how I’ll bring this into the laureateship, but I will find a way.”
Dr. Ní Dhuibhne has written over 30 books, many of which are in Irish, a language that she says is a definite priority for her to promote,“I would like to encourage people to read some of our very good fiction in Irish. The readership of books in Irish is very small and it's just hard to reach readers and it's hard for people who are not fluent. But it is not as difficult as they may think - letting people know that these books exist is the first step.”
The overarching theme of Dr. Ní Dhuibhne’s Laureateship will be the “Island of Imagination”, exploring the question of “what makes a good story ?” It is to be expected that Dr. Ní Dhuibhne’s Laureatship will have a vital question in its very nucleus as Ní Dhuibhne’s characters are so very often on the verge of self discovery themselves, always floating around the periphery of a question before becoming completely drawn in by its own gravity.
When asked what she, in her own writing, qualifies as a good story, Dr. Ní Dhuibhne said: “I like to have a story with a good setting, interesting character, and something has to happen, but the dramatic event has to have a deeper effect, it has to take place for the attentive reader to discover. They have to be meaningful and strike the reader as something true, but of course, entertaining.”
Dr. Ní Dhuibhne’s appointment as Laureate was met with unanimous praise, widely regarded as an inspired and subtly brilliant and unexpected choice. UCD Professor Margaret Kelleher, Chair of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama, told the University Observer: “we, in the School of English, Film, Drama and Creative Writing, are delighted with the appointment of Éilís Ní Dhuibhne as Laureate: Éilis is a triple graduate with a BA, M Phil and PhD from UCD, and a former and much valued teaching colleague. Is mór an t-aitheantas é freisin ar a hobair ilteangach; her own bilingual writing and her commitment to fostering literature in the many languages of contemporary Ireland make her an inspired and inspiring choice.”
These sentiments were echoed by Professor Catríona Clutterbuck, poet and fellow professor at UCD, who told the University Observer that “in these uncertain times, Éilís’ work probes the challenges which must be faced in order for individuals and communities to nurture the type of active consciousness which is capable of transgressing life-denying social, cultural and political boundaries, for the good of all [...] In her hands, folklore becomes a key resource for literature’s telling of alternative stories about Ireland. We salute with tremendous pleasure, Eilís's recent appointment as Irish Laureate for Fiction.”
One can only help but feel revitalised and refreshed by the inspiring choice of Dr. Éilís Ní Dhuibhne as Laureate. She will interweave the two dominant languages of Ireland together, both English and Gaeilge, to create a literary tapestry that will exhibit both Ireland's troubled past and unsettling present to future laureates and generations of Irish writers to come. We wish her the very best of luck.