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Tell us about the story and the characters in it.
Well, "Deargadaoil i mBád fó Thoinn" is a novel,
a campus novel, in that it's situated in a third-level college.
I'm not saying it's any particular college,
but a kind of mixture of different colleges.
So it's really about university life ...
but it's portrayed through the eyes of the staff ...
instead of through the eyes of the students, you know.
So there's a big difference there.
And I think this is the first campus novel in Irish, really.
They're found in English but not in Irish.
I think it's a fun book more than anything else.
It's said in the blurb at the back of the book ...
that's it's an attack on the education system ...
but I wouldn't agree with that at all ... I wouldn't agree with that at all.
I think it's fun.
And so even if people in particular colleges think the book is about them ...
I don't think that's true.
There's no particular character being portrayed, you know, but a mixture, as I said;
a mixture of colleges and a mixture of characters.
Why did you decide to write a story about university life?
I spent the best part of 40 years teaching in one of them.
And, I have a reasonably good knowledge of a lot of other colleges ... third level, you see ...
in Galway, where I went to university myself.
And you know, Cork ... we were connected with Cork for a number of years.
I was working in Mary I, or Mary Immaculate College ...
and we were under the jurisdiction of University College Cork for a number of years ...
and we're now connected with the University of Limerick.
So I was familiar with a lot of the colleges as a result.
So it's not just about Mary Immaculate College at all, you see?
But ... and because I had that life experience, you know,
being there for most of my life, it's natural that I'd write something about that.
Well, generally, you write about yourself and, you know, about your own life.
Of course you add to it, you know, and you expand on it ...
and you hope you can make it more appealing to readers and things like that.
But it relates for the most part to yourself and to your own life.
It doesn't matter what people say, I don't think you can write completely from your imagination.
I'm a big fan of realism anyway.
Other people would be more taken with fantasy.
I like fantasy too, but overall I prefer realism ...
and [things that are] related to life and I think it's ...
I personally prefer to read things like that anyway.
Other people think you can create it all out of your head, but I don't do that.
You put a lot of emphasis on the thoughts and words of the characters in your writing. Why is that?
Well there's a lot of dialogue in the book ... that's true.
I think readers usually like dialogue ...
because it's a lot lighter and you move along quickly in the book.
I'm the same myself, I love dialouge ...
and dialogue comes very easy to me, I think.
And of course it's up to other people to say whether I succeed or not.
You want the characters to be alive and I think they're alive ...
you know, that they're expressing their own lives through their conversations.
And, of course, people always like ... Any writer likes to listen to people talking wherever they are.
There's nothing a writer likes better than listening to a conversation.
And he might pretend that he isn't listening to it and have the newspaper in front of him ...
and at the same time he wishes he had a tape recorder with him sometimes so writing the book would be very easy indeed.
What approach do you take to writing?
Well, you see, when I tell people that I like to work this way or that way, they say ....
"don't you have great self-control" ...
and I don't think that I'm someone who has his life under control at all.
But at the same time I know that they're right, really ...
because there aren't many days that I don't write for an hour or an hour and a half.
I didn't this morning now because I had to come here too early.
But even on Christmas Day, it could happen that I'd spend an hour or an hour and a half writing or doing something like that with the computer.
So yeah, I do that almost every morning ...
especially now since I retired and I have the opportunity to.
And, you know, I get up quite early in the morning all right, I get up at 7 o'clock ...
and I'd be at my computer at maybe 8 o'clock ...
and then I'd spend maybe an hour and a half on the computer.
And then I'd go down for a cup of tea and a few bars ... a few squares of dark chocolate ...
because it's good for the heart, it's said, and I'm delighted when I hear that something's good for your heart when I like it anyway.
So I'm very consistent in that way.
I usually work in the morning ... I much prefer working in the morning.
It's all right when you have the rough draft of something done ...
and that you're kind of editing after that.
That's a lot easier and a lot more appealing and I could do that at any time of the day or night.
But I couldn't do the other thing, when you're trying to put something together ...
and you have the huge burden of a novel or whatever ...
and it's from that that the finished product will come in the end.
Are you working on anything creative at the minute?
Yes. I'm working on a few things.
Now I wouldn't usually tell people what I have in hand.
I'm working on a rough draft of another novel at the minute.
But before that ... because I have a rough draft ... I'm working as well, though I haven't done anything with it for almost year, on my memoirs.
So ... I have a rough draft of my memoirs written.
Then I wanted to leave it, as you were saying and as we were discussing just a minute ago, I wanted to stand back from it.
So it's very important when you're writing to take a step back from it as well, very important indeed.
So I want to stand back for a year or so ...
and so, while I'm taking a step back from it, I want to forget about that work and do some new work.
So that's why I'm in the middle of a rough draft for another novel or book.
And when I'm finished writing that rough draft, hopefully ...
Even though I'm not getting on too well!
I'll go back to the memoirs.
So I would think, if a publisher is happy with them ...
that my memoirs would be coming out before any other book.