#151 | After The Silent Letters: Louise O’Neill

Louise O’Neill, Clonakilty’s literary superstar, has never been content to limit her phenomenal writing skills to a single genre. Her latest work, “After The Silence”, sees her apply her gift for world-building, Swiss-watch plot intricacy and clear-eyed empathy to the crime genre. Agatha Christie set her murder mysteries in spaces where a range of characters could neither get in or out, and O’Neill has chosen an especially fascinating stage for her tale: a Gaeltacht island off the coast of West Cork.

In today’s episode, Louise tells Darach and Gearóidín about writing this novel – why she chose a Gaeltacht island and the research she did in preparation for this. She talks about public interest in real life murder trials and the effect they can have on an area. And she talks about getting both the Irish language and Hiberno-English included in a book marketed at an international audience and how she fought her corner.

She has a favourite Irish word too!

 

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