 Rydyn ni'n gweithio Irish wrth gwaith, ac mae'n gweithio ar gyfer yr Irish Lloriaeth Cymru, Cyntho Bein, sy'n gweithio'r Llanthagol, ac mae'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio a'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio. I think it's interesting the number of books coming out in the quality of them and the fact that, almost every season, someone arrives, you've never heard of before, it's her first book and often there is a second book and that in both cases, there is a remarkable new voice and I think it's following a pattern which is that, rather than being Irish and representing the nation in some way, these novels and stories seem to me to be amser yn ystod o'n ddwylo'r cyflog iawn, i'w ddweud eich cyflog yma yn yr hynny'n dweud, yw'r hynny'n oedd yn bwrdd cyflog o'r llyfr. Maen nhw i'r ddweud eich ddweud i yr Arland. Ni'n gallu gweld eich ddweud eich ddweud eich ddweud eich ddweud. Ond nid oedd yn iddyn nhw'n ddweud, yn ymddangos, yn y ddweud, mae'n ddweud eu ddweud ei ddweud, ond yna'n ddweud i'w ddweud. Mae'r sefydlu i'r ochr peth yn rhoi cyfraedd sy'n byw sydd eisiau amsgafaf ar gyfer yng ngall gyda'i'rθanedd iawn. Mae'n addos ffordd gan y ddysgu o gyfraedd iawn. Mae'r ddechrau, yn y ddysgu, yn y ddysgu i'n ei bach, yn y bach ddisgu agor, ond i wneud bod yn y gyfraedd gwathol, wrth gwrs, mae'n ddysgu ei ddisgu'r ddysgu'r ddinpo. Felly, oes bod a'i symud o'u gwybodol yn ddechrau unrhyw That's very interesting, because one of the things that I was struck by this weekend was how many younger Irish writers said that they didn't feel they were coming specifically from an Irish tradition. But then I wondered if you thought that the changes in the past 20 years in Ireland have given younger writers greater freedom to write, given that they're not encumbered by the sort of secrecy or shame or burden of history that many earlier writers were. I think that that again idea, we're looking at continuities. If you look at, for example, the relationship of Joyce to the Irish literary renais song saying, I've nothing to do with those people, and Joyce's search for ipson and search for various other forms, including indeed Homer. And indeed if you look at Beckett's interest, for example, in writing in French, when I was starting to read, the censorship had been lifted, and you could buy paperback books, you know, pretty easily. I wouldn't have bought an Irish book under that. I mean, Frank O'Connor, Stephen Dedalus, all those men and their shame and their religion and the Catholicism, their first confession, their last rites, their sermons, their clongos wood, the rain, the misery. I wouldn't have gone near it. I mean, you could go and you could read a book by Hemingway. You could read a book by William Faulkner. You know, you could read Dofstioski. Like, why would you be stuck with what you're already stuck with? And so I think that idea of saying, I don't invent Ireland doesn't mean anything to me. I'm not. I'm not really an Irish writer. I'm looking for models elsewhere. My sensibility is A, cosmopolitan, or B, not stuck in drizzle rain and bad masturbation. That, you know, this is something that I think we all went through, and it seems to be part, I think, of any island will any small country will go. I imagine they're going through this in Lithuania as we speak. Okay. Well, let's ask Roddy Ddol about that, because Roddy Ddol, you're an Irish writer and you stayed in Ireland, despite the rain and all the rest of it. Let's talk about what it was like for when you started off as a writer, because I'm very conscious of the fact that nowadays there seem to be so many creative writing courses and bursaries and lots of help for people writing. What was it like when you started out? Well, I didn't consider myself an Irish writer when I started, and I still don't really. It's a bit like Colin mentioned in the flag. I'm a Dubliner, and I wasn't overly burdened by what literature had come from Dublin. I'd read a bit of it, I loved a bit of it. Flann O'Brien, who wasn't a Dubliner, but I suppose was inspired by Dubliner, was the only Irish writer I'd have lifted and said, this is my writer. As far as I knew there were no supports whatsoever for writing, there were no courses, there were no writing courses. I didn't feel the lack because I didn't know they existed, and I don't feel any way. I know that there are colleges in America where I wouldn't be able to teach because I don't have a PhD in writing. I've written 12 novels and a lot of other stuff, but I don't have the qualification to teach about writing, so that says a little bit. I wasn't aware of any, I just wanted to write. I was very much inspired by friends of mine who'd set up a theatre company in Dublin, Paul Mercier and John Sutton, a company called The Passion Machine. I wanted to write a piece of prose that in some way was in the same spirit. I ended up publishing it myself because there was absolutely no interest in it either in Ireland or anywhere else. I did it myself in a way with my friend John Sutton, and looking back on it, I'm glad I did. It was a great experience, it was brilliant, trying to get the money to do it, writing a business plan that was way more fictional than the book. The crack, it was great. I was told that the launch was going to be sponsored by Guinness, so there are still people making their way home from that particular launch 35 years later. I found out the following morning it wasn't sponsored by Guinness and the drink cost more than the printing of the book cost, and not for a second did I go, oh no, I wish I hadn't done that. It was just great. I was, and I don't say this with any little violin, I was alone. I was writing something that I thought was breaking the rules and I was very happy doing that. I was aware of the rules and I was really happy doing breaking the rules. A big giant FU to Ireland and Irish culture, an official Irish culture or whatever you want to call it. I wouldn't have wanted any help looking back on it. Well then in writing the Barry Town books and then the success with the commitments and the film and all the rest of it and winning the book were for Patty Clark, then that turned the gaze of course of the bigger publishers from England onto you. Well that happened before, I mean once I had a copy of the commitments in my hand I sent it to English publishers and one Dan Franklin who remained my publisher right up until he retired was very enthusiastic about it so it came out the following year here in Britain, a brand new edition and that was a good while before the film came out. There was talk of the film but there was nothing like anybody who's involved in film business or has ever been told we're interested in your book will know that it's always vaguely science fictional until it happens. Do you know it often doesn't happen at all or you're told it's the most wonderful thing they've ever read and that's the last you ever hear. So I can't actually remember the precise wording of your question but. Neither can I. That's reassuring. I can, I can. I'm only teasing. No what I was saying was that the gaze of the British publishers became leaned in the direction of Ireland. Oh it was more than welcome to be honest with you. It's possible I suppose for those who came after and then that on that note I want to turn to Audrey and ask you whether be going with your manuscript as an Irish writer and following in the footsteps of Colomand and Anne Wright and all the others. Did that make it any easier for you do you think to kind of get that foot in the door? Yeah I think it's a really I mean each writer has his or her their own journey so you know what's intimidating what's not intimidating. And I remember as a child growing up in the village of Enesgarage just outside Dublin watching Frederick Forsythe who used to live in the village and he'd come down the hill every morning to get his newspaper and he was usually dressed in tweeds, brown green tweeds. And he'd buy the newspaper and put it under folded over put it under his oxster and go back up the hill. And I remember I mean I was eight or ten or something I remember looking at this going God that's a lovely life isn't it. And it was totally contradictory in my head this was you know early 1970s to the drama of writing because the drama of writing was banned books. It was Edna O'Brien it was John McGahn it was never right you know do never become never become a writer because it's the most dangerous place on earth. You know you'll be banned you'll be banished you'll be you just prohibited from completely having any existence. And yet here was this man sauntering up and down the hill happy as a lark. And then it was like well is it because he's English and you're Irish is that the difference. And to be honest that that was where I fled then into French and German literature. A bit like column is like well I'm not dealing with any of that. You know I just launched myself into rising like Marguerite Vass and for somehow always believed that Beckett was French because I read him in French and forgotten that he was Irish because really it was so it was such an international space that I first inhabited as in writing. Then I suppose I wrote when I was writing in journalism and then eventually had reached a point where I had to write. I wrote first about Germany and I wrote first about the Second World War as though it was just a war is not a safe space but it was a kind of a safe space away from Ireland. You know where I could find myself as a writer and in that book there's the Peter Faber who's the German soldier talks about going to Ireland. Because I knew in my next book I was going to go to Ireland. And can I interrupt you there and ask you then why did you come back to Ireland for the colony. Because you kind of have to in the end. I think that's where Irish writers the court is never severed. No no and you know why should it be you know you you have these these first years in this place that inform you no matter how much you try and run away from it. Or shed it or you know say I'm different. I'm independent. I'm going to do it my way and you know. But in the end you do get certainly in the colony I got drawn back to trying to understand obviously the impact of colonisation on on on us as people but also on language. And this led me on a journey then into exploring the Irish language which I had absolutely run a million miles from as fast as I possibly could as a teenager. Because really to to kind of engage with Ireland in the Irish language was no different to Joyce. It was you know it was it was a language of another era. It was you know English French German whatever was the language of the future. And it was only really when I was writing the colony that I came to understand just obviously the texture of the language but just the vibrant community that exists in Irish language writing today in Ireland today that I wasn't really fully aware of and became fascinated by which I can talk about now. And just basically that that while we were very focused obviously in English in this festival which has been amazing festival. There is there is another kind of culture going on of of of which I find a really interesting space because when we were growing up you know kind of the language choices when it came to Irish were quite binary. And it was it was you were going to write in English or you're going to write in Irish. And you know people like like these gentlemen here before me chose to write in English newly me go no chose to write in Irish. But it became it was quite a deliberate choice. And and I think what's really fascinating the Irish language now is it's not so binary. You know people are moving shifting between the two languages and there's more kind of bilingual work coming through and since the Good Friday Agreement I think it's created a new space for these kind of binary works. You know it might be one page in English one page in Irish obviously you had Michael Hartnett writing and other people writing a long time ago in Irish. But it's it's creeping into a kind of a more bilingual space and film in fiction writing and poetry writing which I think is really fascinating to consider that it's a really interesting journey that we've come on. It's reclaiming the space. Well I was interested in what you said there about community of Irish writers and it struck me what even is an Irish writer. I mean you have Irish writers living in Ireland. You have Irish writers living in London. You have Irish writers who come and go like you do Colin and everybody. I mean I don't even know how you would define it as simple. You just you're just Irish and stacking bold. You know you can wear a wig but it wouldn't work. The other thing that struck me this weekend was that there was a lot of talk about writing about personal experiences and that there is this element of a confessional tone in a lot of the newer Irish writing and people talk about the Sally Rooney effect. And you know it's very autobiographical and I wondered you know how writers from a different generation look at that. I mean do you feel that that's almost to autobiographical or you know is that where is its place in Irish literature today. I mean do you feel that it sort of creates a distance between the generations. Who wants to answer that column. You know again I'll go back to. I don't think there's anything more. If you're looking for auto fiction while you go to the portrait of the artist as a young man. If you're looking for auto fiction. I mean Mary Lavins stories about being a widow. A story like happiness story like in the middle of the fields. A story like in a cafe are so autobiographical. So clearly so and at the time they were published people were absolutely aware that this was her life. She was describing those fields in County Meath being a widow the loss of her husband at an early age. Her three daughters that they're there that that makes up really the body of her best fiction. But I think there's something more important which is breaking silences tremendously interesting always. And maybe it's part of the function of fiction is to see if there's a silence and see if there's any way you could get involved in breaking. Of course one of the great silences is a silence about the self is a silence about who you are and what you feel and what you've been doing. And so that's that creates and it's happening in England. It's happening in France. It's happening in Ireland. It's a big deal because it's about things that you thought I would never say things about me. You don't know things I thought I would never say. And you're saying this is generally being written by women. It's blokes are not doing it. I think blokes probably should do it. But you can never say should to a writer. But it is. I think it is creating a great excitement. This idea you're opening a page and someone is going to tell you the truth about themselves. Whereas in many ways fiction itself can be a sort of disguise a way of finding metaphors a way of moving out of the self. But I find this. We might call all the fiction or writing autobiographically or writing about your own world or your own self. I find it exciting. Yesterday in the discussion on the essay. It was very interesting to hear some of the younger writers saying that they felt that the marriage equality referendum had been a sort of pivotal moment in that people started sharing personal experiences. And that for them it opened up an avenue for them to actually write about things that hitherto were concealed or that they felt you couldn't talk about. As you say you know silenced and we know an awful lot about silence in Ireland and shame. So as you say that's a good thing. Can it go too much in the other direction. As for example I think it was Brian Dylan said yesterday if we're writing an essay particularly because it lends itself very much to the essay. If we're talking about ourselves and our own issues should anyone care does anyone care. How do we make people care about things that have happened to us. It has to be well written. It's as simple as that. I didn't I had no idea Sally Rooney wrote or wrote autobiographically. I just think she writes extremely well. No no I'm not saying she does but I am talking about this. There's a sort of a just I think people have called it the Sally Rooney effect that it's kind of young people writing about you know falling in love and Trinity College or whatever. But there's a kind of a fashion for writing about it. I think you know when you're writing a novel I don't think you should be overly concerned whether it's based on something that actually happened or not. Because a lot of what I've written is inspired by personal experience. But it's important for me to stay out of it in that way just to allow the story and to write it as well as I possibly can. And I don't see any change there really. Obviously I can't speak on behalf of younger writers because I'm not one. But I used to be. And I wrote about domestic violence and I wrote about birth outside marriage and I wrote about other things that were kind of taboo back then. And to a degree still are depending on what class you come from. You know I wrote about unemployment and I wrote. So I don't think there's a continuity I think you know. And the essays I would agree with Colin does a lot of really really great writing coming out of there. Really really great writing people using their bodies for example as their material. And I think that's brilliant because the writing is brilliant. And that's the important thing isn't it the quality of the writing. If the writing isn't good good luck but nobody's going to read it you know. And it may well be good therapeutically but it's not going to be good. So it's the quality of the writing that matters regardless of whether. Like I was writing on Friday I'll be writing on Monday and Tuesday Wednesday Thursday. And it doesn't matter whether what I'm writing is inspired by my own life to a slight degree it is but it's fiction. It's whether it's any good or not that matters. And I felt the exact same way when I was 28. And I think what you're looking if you look even at what's happening this festival. And you were talking about Irish writing there's an awful lot that is very very good. And why is that is that is that a new found freedom. Is that a better education system. Is that more financial support that you were talking about earlier. Or is it just a bit of a bit of a kind of a perfect storm where we're growing in confidence and we're growing in our kind of. You know a lot of what what you're reading now that's that's new. It is very international. It's not Irish anymore. It's represented. It echoes around the world because it is bigger in just Ireland. And I think that's what's exciting. You know. A good story is always going to go past. It's Irish. Again if you set a story in a city. The globe is awash with cities and the urban experience there are common. You know obviously growing up in Dublin is different to growing up in London. But there are probably seven or eight things out of the 10 that are similar. You know. And it's the other two that make it geographically unique. So I think you know you asked a question earlier what what does Irish mean. And kind of outside of having a passport or maybe living in the place or wishing to be to be identified as Irish. It doesn't really have much meaning when you sit down and write. I think myself it doesn't really obviously if the story is set in Dublin today you're living in the Republic of Ireland. And there are other you know things that hand you in. You know or that would make it different to if you were writing in Birmingham or Liverpool or New York or somewhere like that. But other than that I don't think there is much of a difference you know. So it's all down again to the story equality. I would say I don't want to. I get sent a lot of proofs you know advanced proofs of books that are coming out. And one of the gleeful things that one of the things I find great is that huge proportion of them are by women. You know. And it is to put it mildly interesting. Why would you expand on that. Could you expand on that. It's used to be. Oh. Right. I'll give you an example. I used to be on panels. I still am. Here I am. But in the past you know to be writing or choosing choosing my favorite books of the year. I said would you make sure you include a woman. And I used to find that laughable in a way. I just found it ridiculous. But now I was doing a panel of younger writers. And I was asked would you make sure you include a man. So there's a moment. And you know so. Can we just tease that out a little bit. When do you think that moment was. I don't really know because I don't know. I do know that when say for example the snapper and the van came out here. I'm going to put a link to that. So there was a lot of attention being given to. I didn't pay attention to it myself because I was at home. Rearing children and writing books. So. But there were stones being lifted to look people looking for the new. Roddyd oil to my not. They didn't find them as far as I know. And I do think. And it's a great thing that is no doubt whatsoever. Sally Rooney's influence has been big regardless of whether she wants that or not. It's there because they're looking for the new Sally Rooney. Mae'n gweithio i'r newid, Salih Rune. Gallai'n ei ddweud hynny, ac mae'n gweithio i'r gweithio'r wrth i'r rhaid. Mae'r rhaid o'r gweithio'r gweithio. A dyna'r tynnu, mae'n gofio ar y ddefnyddio. Mae'n gweld, y same sex marriage referendum. Mae'n ddigon i gael i gweithio ar y gweithio'r gweithio, mae'n gweithio'r referendum, mae'n gweithio ar gyfer y referendum precirio'r referendum. Mae'n gweithio ar y abortion. I ran oeddoedd yma ymlaen nhw lle oeddo'r bobl yn bryd o'r unrhyw ymweld. Mae'n gofio i'r bobl yn agorio yma, ac ydych chi'n gweithio eithaf y 7 oed yn rhan oeddaeth. Mae'n gweithio y 8 oed, mae'n maen nhw'n meddwl o'r bwysig o'r bwysig. Mae'n meddwl i'r brafio'n meddwl i'r reilio. Felly, dwy'n meddwl o'r bwysig o'r bwysig o'r bwysig o'r bwysig o'r bwysig. Ac y gallwn y Brexit oedd yma o'r rôl i, yn leisio'r ffordd o'r rôl yn gyfrifio astiwyr. Y gallwn rôl sydd yn rôl yn y War 2 Garmol, byddai'r War 2 Garmol, ac wrth gwrs, ar y Cymru. Y rôl yn Arland, ddigon i'r llawr, ddigon i'r llawr, mae erbyn y gallwn mwyntau o'r grannu i'r llawr, a'r rhannu i'r llawr yn y ffordd. Ac mae hynny wedi'i gael o'r leidio'r arddangol. Yn ni'n wneud, y ffordd yng Ngharidau, Mae fydd yn ystyried. Mae fydd ystyried ymweld i chi, a os ydych chi'n talio y byddol i gilydd y bydd hynny o hyn yn ymdweithio hynny. Mae'n mynd i chi'n dweud. Mae'r ffordd o'r awdraethau. Mae'r ffordd o'r ffordd o'r ffordd, mae'r ffordd o'r ffordd o'r marion, mae'r ffordd o'r bain o'r bain o'r ffordd. Mae'n oed o'r ffordd o'r ffordd, Ond ond ydyn nhw wedi bod yn gwybod, yn dweud y dyma sowydau, bod ydych chi'n cyfle i gweithio'n gweithio. Mae'n ddweud y peth yn gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio. Yn ychydig yn ei ddweud, yn y llyniol yn 10 o 15 oes, sy'n ystyniad o'r barat o ddweud yn llunio eu sgwrdd. Jennifer Johnson is a huge figure, and Anne Enright. Huge, enormous figure, just carries so much weight so brilliantly, I think she's a friend, so happy to say that. And another figure that we tend to forget, but shouldn't, is Maeve Binchie. Absolutely, and I think that's one of the things when we're talking about Irish writing that we don't give maybe enough credit to writers of more commercial fiction, lighter, you know, Marian Keyes, for example. Yeah, if you want to read a good book and you want to be shocked and laugh, Marian Keyes, you want to laugh. Family issues and relationships, and they don't get included in the canon of Irish literature and yet, you know, they sell millions. They sell millions and they write, again they write very well, you know, all I ask really is that you write well and they both do brilliantly, you know. Yeah, I think as well, my sense when I'm listening to younger people is, you know, they're not as obsessed with being. It's a bit like, you know, if I ask one of me kids, have you heard this, they don't care if it's cool, if it's hip, if it's new, if it's commercial or if it's all right to be seen listening to it, as opposed to heard listening to it. They listen to everything, and there's no difference in their minds between Bob Dylan and Lizzo. It's good. And they're not as, you know, self-conscious as people of my age would have been at their age. And I think it's much the same with younger writers probably as well. They're not as obsessed with saying the right thing or wearing the right jacket or being considered literary, you know, which is just, you know, snobbery really. I think it came out of fear. You know, we latched onto things much more than the current younger generation would because they became identifiers. You know, you became, you became marked by this particular thing, which allowed you form a social group around it. You know, and whether it was opposed to something or in favour of something. And I think that became kind of almost necessary to kind of the growing up in Ireland kind of thing that absolutely young people do not have now. It's like whatever, much more tolerance, much more acceptance of. And I think that's absolutely coming through in the literature that's absolutely coming through in the books that are written. You know, you can probably the advent of the internet and the digital age generally as well. I think that again internationalises are thinking internationalises are reading and internationalises in the end are writing. And more than that, it also allows people to have opinions and to express them publicly. Colin, I just wanted to turn to you. There was often said that the arrival of the Kindle, say for example, or the digital age would just drown out, you know, the world of books. But that hasn't happened. People still like to buy a book and hold a book in their hands, don't they? And reading is just as popular as ever, as I'm sure you realise now, because as laureate I think you've instituted a monthly book club event with libraries. I think that's been the real big change in Ireland, which is the arrival of a serious readership. In other words, so it was a time when you published it hard back in London. It could be banned in Ireland, but even if it wasn't banned, I'm talking about the 50s that the book would not receive a wide readership in your own country. I think that's really changed now. And that's something I really obviously noticed that you're in a library, there's a new novel out, and everyone is reading it with great interest, enthusiasm, but also intelligence. And there was something I was thinking about while you were talking about, you know, the referendum, say the same sex referendum. We were told as gay people, the best thing for all you guys to do is go quiet, now let your sister speak, let your mother speak, let your granny speak. And you just don't make your argument about human rights, you know, like tell your story, but make it soft, like don't argue, don't interrupt. And that was great because it worked. It was really well done. But it left a strange silence at the end where if you just think about it, Ireland is a very, very unusual country in that the number of, you know, cisgender writers and straight writers who have written gay characters in Ireland is really an extraordinary number. In other words, I could list them for you. And the number of gay writers who've emerged from that same sex campaign are very few. And say, if you look back, writers like Kate O'Brien, John Broderick, for example, are writers that barely get mentioned now and they represent a strange dotted line tradition of gay writing in Ireland. But it is a silence and it is a sort of funny invisibility. And so there's always a silence that some writer, in ten years time, someone could look back what I'm saying, think that's ridiculous, look at what's happened in the last ten years. So there are always silences to write out of. And there are always readers, it's what's interesting as well as there are always readers open to that. You know, it isn't as though you're pushing against a locked door. It is that there is now, so I'm finding a real openness to not only content but formal trickery, you know, doing something strange with a novel is absolutely fine with readers. And I think we're very good at, you know, I think we do have to kind of bow here a little bit for whatever reason the Irish and the Irish writing community remains very good a narrative. You know, that even though, say, you know, a lot of the kind of French German writing that I would have read in my younger days, you know, as a group, as a writer, you know, a lot of it would be really wonderfully and tons to think about but not actually have necessarily a great narrative. And I think there's so much Irish writing that is a blend, it's almost like a European blend of philosophy, sociology, but also narrative, you know. We're not afraid of narrative in Ireland, which I think is really a wonderful space. It's wonderful to embrace narrative and to just celebrate that in our works, which I think, you know, we do, which we kind of take for granted, but we do like telling stories. It's true. And I suppose that comes back to our general, you know, love of conversation. I mean, you know, people talk to each other all the time, you know, they talk on the bus or, you know, they'll talk in the queue. You know, we're talkers and we don't like a silence and I think that then comes into writing as well. Do you know what I mean? We're just good at dialogue and we're good at talking. Would you agree with that, Roddy? Yeah, but I wouldn't insist that everybody be a good talker, you know. You're less Irish if you can't carry a conversation. You know, you might just be a shy Irish person. You like listening to people talking. And I would have been one of them, you know. I would have been listening rather than talking. I'd have been confident talking to a small group of people. Yeah, I do think if there's a joke doing the rounds, it'll become a story, something that actually happened, no matter how absurd. And I think we convert the jokes into stories, yeah. And I was just thinking there today of the Playboy, the Western World, and how what gets Christie accepted is his story. He tells a convincing story and he becomes the hero. And they don't want the reality, they want the story. And I think, yeah, we do tell good stories, I think, yeah. So I do think there's that. I don't think it's uniquely Irish, but it's there, there's no doubt. We don't like... I heard a man talking to another man on the tube yesterday across the aisle. And I thought, Jesus! Whereas if it happened on the bus in Dublin, I wouldn't have noticed, you know. It would feel perfectly natural. And I remember getting off a bus in London a while back and I said, thank you to the driver. And I think he thought I was going to stab him or something, you know. Whereas it's perfectly normal. And there was a guy behind me getting off the bus recently in Dublin on Talbot Street. And he said to the driver, driver, that was flawless. He was acting the maggot, obviously. And it was just basically the trip, the entire trip involved one right hand turn. And it wasn't raining, it wasn't snowing. That only happened the once, but if somebody said, where did that happen? Dublin. So it is true, yeah, we do like silence isn't an option really. When I was a teacher as well, all the kids, all they wanted to do was talk. You know, all they wanted to do was talk. And it was like your job was to herd it into what you wanted them to talk about. But all they wanted to do was talk, fair play to them. Rodi, just while you're on the subject of children there, it reminds me that you were involved for a long time with the fighting words. Still are. And you still are. You co-founded it. And can you tell us a bit about that? You know, I'm thinking about the next generation of readers and writers and how they can be kind of nurtured. Yeah, well myself and the other man, Sean Love set up this organization Fighting Words. We opened in 2009. And what we wanted to do was make creative writing in its various forms as inviting and as doable and as enjoyable as possible to children and young people initially. And to make, you know, because the education and system in Ireland in some ways it's excellent, but in other ways it's just atrocious. And the insistence on measuring the worth of a child according to their exam results is just horrible, you know, and it's distorted and it's wrong. I don't know, even my children who have been through the education system, when it came to exams they were actively encouraged not to write the short story, for example, because it doesn't get as many marks as writing an essay. And I thought, you know, what a perverse way of looking. I got considering, you know, you're dead half an hour, if you're a writer in Ireland, you're dead half an hour and there'd be a T-shirt and a T-tail. You know, we flogged the country, you sell the country using dead writers. And yet you're still trying to stifle the living ones. And I don't mean myself, I mean the kids. So we set up fighting words and we now have branches, I suppose, of groups throughout the country, hundreds of thousands of children we've worked with. Currently working with retired printers, for example, we've worked with dockers, people in prisons, an extraordinary array and all forms of creative writing. And it's, for me, I love it because I get so much out of it really. I was in a prison recently and did a bit of script writing for two hours with a group of men. And Jesus, it was fantastic, you know. And the reason I said I'd do it was because I knew I was going to enjoy it. And you go through the whole rigmarole of security and the rest of it. And it's not a life you'd wish on anybody really. But the two hours of doing this, writing a script, just two characters with these men was extraordinary. Absolutely extraordinary. And not all of them were Irish born either. And some of the great ideas were coming from more recent arrivals. Great, great stuff. It's the same with kids, really. It can be so inspiring what they're writing. And fantasy is a huge thing. You know, a mystery to me because I never read it when I was their age. But a huge, huge thing among kids. I was with a group of, I think, about 10, 15, 16-year-old kids. And totally independently, two young women say if this is a room, one over there, one over there, we're writing about a burning house. And I said, was that a school exercise or something? And that was a pure coincidence. The two of them were writing very different stories about a house burning. And fascinating, you know. So there's a lot of great, I think if we talk about, you know, the hyphenated Irish, the newly arrived Irish, people who are speaking a different language at home than they are on the street or whatever. Music is always first because it's more immediate. And I think writing follows afterwards. And I think a lot of the, from, to my eye, when I'm reading a lot of the stuff by kids over the last 10 years or so, a lot of the really interesting English is being written by people who speak a different language at home or listen to a different language at home. And they're adding the Irish language bubbling under the English in Ireland. That adds an extra, you know, an extra elbow to the grammar, an extra joint. We break rules knowing, actually, there used to be our rules before we were given other rules and that type of sentimental nonsense. But there are writers now who have even more layers. More, they're adding not just the one elbow but two or three elbows to the grammar. And, you know, so, you know, it'll be a different, you know, in 10 years' time, 15 years' time, there'll be a different group of writers on this stage, perhaps talking about the latest wave of Irish writing. It'll be very interesting to hear the viewpoints, I think, of those people who have come to live in Ireland with a different perspective as opposed to people who have grown up there. And again, the sensitivity to language will absolutely feed through and it's going to create a very dynamic space. Yeah, and I think we all have grown up, whatever our relationship with the Irish language, it has grown up and informed our relationship with English, whether we want it or not. We have been influenced and informed and even if it's only to ignore and move away from and even flee from, it's still defining us even if we don't want to be defined by it. So it's going to be interesting to see if you add more languages into the country into the multi-potion. Yeah, what happens. We talked earlier a bit about the digital age and all the rest of it and I wondered if you had any experience of you talked about young people reading fantasy. The fantasy is a big thing. Are young people reading? You've got three? I've got three. The big concern I would have is the impact of COVID because it's definitely put all these early teens, mid teens, completely onto screens. I'm sure other people have different experiences but it definitely, my older children will be reading but the younger kind of mid teens down, they are so now used to screens, they're so visual. They see things can be different because they have more of a visual brain than they have a word brain but it's just kind of fascinating in terms of how they spend their time and how informed it is by the image rather than the word and sometimes you feel work going back to Hieroglyphics. And yet the flip side of it is a lot of these kids when they text and all the rest of it, they're writing more than we would have ever written. But it's, in the standard format, a lot of children now are not picking up books and sticking with them in the younger age groups. Definitely not as hard for them. Is that an attention span thing because of instant information? Yeah, I think it's hard. Learning how to read is quite hard. There's research coming out to show that the focus capacity now of nine-year-olds in Ireland is much reduced and a lot of that has been since Covid, a lot of the kids have not got the attention to shy away from sitting down still with a book and going off into the world of images. Just to reassure you a little bit. I was hearing the same thing in the staff room at the school I taught in 35 years ago. Yeah. I don't read. I don't read. I have attention span on that. And yet they're the same people who produced the books we were talking about over the weekend. Again, I wanted to stress but let's not overdo the Irish thing but I'm going to do the Irish thing now. It'll be grand. Because I'd hate to not have readers and writers, you know? Colin, I just wanted to ask you something. It was something that Roger brought up there about the different voices coming into Ireland. People from other countries coming to live there and adding their own unique languages and culture to what will be the next bout I suppose of the next generation maybe of Irish writing. Have you come across that at all? What do you think of that? I think that one of the things that writing shows is how few borders there are. And the border strangely between Ireland and England has always been a dotted border or a strange unmapped border in a way. As regards writing, in other words since the early 19th century or even before perhaps Irish writers have gone to London to publish Mariah Edgeworth, William Carlton went, everybody else went after that. And so there's been always a group of London editors who've always been alert to what's happening in Ireland and open to new Irish books coming. But one of the other things we have is Irish books go to England. But what's happening in England is really very interesting that underneath Brexit there's been something else going on which you can see in the universities in the north of England for example a whole new generation of people emerging from the universities whose parents didn't go to university whose parents often came from other countries and they're becoming first generation and this is happening in writing where if you look at the sort of fact that the hyphen has become the thing in other words people like Sadie Smith, Monica Alley, Salman, Rushdie I could mention many many others in English now in English writing where it isn't exactly that they dominate but that is taken for granted that they're there, the images they create have been images of immense importance for the entire society in a sort of undercurrent and I think that things like that that happen in England often happen in Ireland 20, 30 years later and so that's something we will be seeing in the future but it's very interesting to look to England and to see that it's one of the things in literary life but literary life that has really made a difference I think to sort of making images in the society that has affected film, has affected television and I think has affected politics Just before we turn it over to the audience for a few questions I just wondered if you had had any experience of publishers in Ireland talking about difficulties in terms of financial pressures you know at the moment just in terms of the cost of print and supply issues and all the rest of it and whether that seems to be O'Brien Press I think last week said it's a very serious situation for Irish publishers and how that could affect the publishing industry No you haven't heard that The cost of raw materials has gone up which means that they're going to make books more expensive potentially But I haven't had a to-head conversation with anybody about it You haven't heard anything about that Well maybe that's hopefully something we might avoid you know I mean even if it does become that books become again very expensive at least there are now alternative ways of reading Yes, got the digital So you know there are options now that there wouldn't have been you know 10, 15 years ago so publishing can still happen And readers will still want books because obviously as we are ascertained you know writing, Irish writing and Irish publishing is in a healthy state It's like the price of the pint But once it reaches a quid I'm never going to buy a pint again Once it reaches two quid I'm never going to buy a pint again So a little bit of luck it'll be the same with books Once it reaches 50 quid We'd be borrowing them a lot more I'd like to turn turn over to the audience now and we have two roving mics and I wonder if you could put your hand up anywhere at the back I think there's someone at the back it's hard to see, could you there we go Hello, hi Is that working? So my question is you guys were talking a lot about different kind of writers and writing styles of kind of topics and patterns and things and I've noticed there's been a new wave of Irish music both from the Republic and from Northern Ireland things like you know Fontaine's DC or Soak and things and what role do you think that these kinds of new types of Irish music have in the literary world Did you hear that? Yeah So I don't know the intriguing musicians you're talking about but I think it is very interesting there's always an influence of music on language even if it's subconscious so that when different generations write they will be influenced by the music that they listen to and I think I don't know again the people you're talking about but I think it's really interesting to hear the different languages coming into music that's being created now both north and south of the border as we have different languages now in Ireland and in interwrap and things like interwrap and that definitely will that is definitely a pulse that feeds into writing there's no question of it because it is a poetic form that will then feed into the way each generation as I said will have their own music and their own hinterland writing absolutely completely how that has manifest we'll wait and see I couldn't really hear what you said but I think you mentioned Fontaine's DC I really really like them I have all their records on vinyl and I really do like them and what I find really fresh about them is that they wear their influences on their sleeve and really they talk about the Dubliners now I grew up sneering at the Dubliners really because my dad liked the Dubliners so it was my job not to like the Dubliners until about 10 or 15 years later when I began to listen and I realised oh they're good and I didn't you know I think my dad probably started listening to the sex pistols at that stage just to have a row with me but it's really interesting that the continuity there but I love the immediacy of their music and there's a thing I find how it may seem trivial but last year Bohemian's football club had a line from a Fontaine's DC stitched into the back of the jersey Dublin in the rain is mine and it says so much I think about Dublin the attitude and I thought I loved the link between the line, literature the football the music and it was a bit like that when I was a teenager there was no separation of oh I play football therefore I cannot read books you did both, not at the same time necessarily unless you were in goal and your team was extremely good but so I really think and there's a lot of and I find it easier sometimes to get the music than I do some of the very young writing I feel I inhabit the music I feel yeah this is written for me as much as it was written for people of their age more so sometimes than the writing and that's not to disparish the writing at all you know it's just now and again I'm watching something on the telly and I'm having a clue what's going on and I know it's because I'm 40 years too old and no amount of explaining will ever make it feel like home and that's grand I don't you know I just don't watch it that's the easy thing Roderick can give out about it so the Fontaine's DC I just think are pretty magnificent there's another lesser known band the murder cathedral the murder capital is it I said the murder cathedral that's an entirely different piece of work isn't it little known fact he was an Irish man too anybody else? we've got a question come in from online it's a question for Colin what about immigrant American languages influencing your writing and whilst that's sinking and I'm going to pass this one to you I don't really know you know influence comes in the strangest ways and I'm 67 it's very hard to get influenced at 67 I mean it really is you're sort of impervious to everything there strange memories and you know so I don't really I mean America doesn't really make that much difference to me I'm sort of in my own head and the books I've read and things that happen but it's very very hard to work out what influences you or what difference things make to you you just honestly don't know you're sort of right out of a very personal DNA a sort of style that's yours and that isn't anybody else's and that's a mystery as to how that comes in words something that comes personally from you it's very hard to intervene in that directly as influence and it's very hard even to know what the influences are and you can't analyse them too much either you just got to feel them you're almost like a jellyfish and things kind of filter through you you just go along, bob along and take on all those filters and just absorb and absorb and absorb and then see what happens Who would you feel has been a big influence on your I think Audrey? There's no question many It's the French writer, no the French writer Margaret de Rass absolutely she blew my mind when I was about 16 or 17 I met her for the first time and I'd been full of Dickens and Jane Austen and all the obviously Shakespeare too but not so much Irish writing and every sentence told you what to feel and I was like can't I figure it out myself and I met her and she does not tell you how to feel she does not tell you how to think she just creates this space and it was revolutionary for me I was just, this is a place where I can be this is a place where I can feel for myself, think for myself and she would just create a mood and an atmosphere and I was allowed to be there and it was radical it was very revolutionary for me and she remains incredibly important her work is astonishing Any other questions? Yeah It's more of a question I think for Roddy and Colin Audrey has already referred briefly to the Irish language and I'm curious if either of you oh by the way, thank you for all for being here I'm curious what you thought about what Audrey said and to what extent you think there is any shift in your experience about the relationship between an Irish and English and indeed perhaps what has been your relationship with Irish I'd be fascinated by that Drop me to answer I went to a Christian brother's school and it was very hard to come out of a place like that with a love of the Irish language It's very hard to come out of that with a love of anything really so I had a hearty dislike of the Irish language because they tried to beat it into us and the attitude in the 70s and the 60s was that you were less Irish if you didn't speak Irish you were less Irish if you came from Dublin you were less Irish if you were a Protestant you were less Irish you lived on the east coast you were less Irish if you wore Levi jeans if there were any black musicians on your vinyl collection whatever, it was just that type of world I knew a story my father was a printer and then he taught printing and graphic design in a college of technology in Dublin and for a summer he thought he didn't have a job when he had two very young children he thought he didn't have a job when he was 15 and he had to do an oral Irish exam and he failed it not because his Irish wasn't good enough but because they didn't like his pronunciation so himself and my mother endured three months not knowing whether he had a job or not which anyone in the room will realise is an eternity in the 1950s in Ireland not having a job and then when he went in back to work in September hoping he'd be let in the door they let him do the test again and they passed it and to me there was that little bit of bitterness in the house both rabid Republicans but they had that little bit of bitterness towards that that inflicting a culture which wasn't really theirs on them and I never really got out of that I've got to say I do like the fact that the Irish language is still alive and I found watching that film that recent film on Colleen Cune a quiet girl a deeply emotional experience because not only was it a really good film it was the first time I think I've ever heard the Irish language being used in a way that seemed really spoken and that I never had to look at a even though I left school in 1976 I never had to look at the subtitles to figure out what was being said but it was an interesting thing the little girl in it said at one point she had to go for a piss we never learnt how to say that in Irish we learnt how to say on the catagome of the letters do I have permission to go to the toilet but we were never allowed to specify we didn't realise there was a slang or there was an informal language no attempt actually to make it fun so I'm very conflicted about it but you know I do love the idea that it's still alive but my kids they went through the same educational experience 30 years later they've no great grow for the Irish language either so it's a big big problem I think but I do at the same time I'm delighted it's still alive and well and I wish it the best I really do but it shouldn't be compulsory that was the problem making it compulsory I thought it was the name along puts you off doesn't it have I answered it? absolutely you've answered it not for the first time we've come to the end of the session and it just remains for me to thank our wonderful panel Con Tubin and Roddy Doyle all I can see is his glass thank you and also Roddy Doyle and Audrey McGee and thank you for being a wonderful audience book signings are still taking place all the best and thanks to our chair and Paddy