SOPHIE GRENHAM talks to Irish author FELICITY HAYES-McCOY about splitting her life between LONDON and the GAELTACHT and what it was like to have MAEVE BINCHY as a mentor …
Felicity Hayes-McCoy is a writer whose talent has been housed in many forms. To date, she has composed fiction and fact, television and radio drama, features, documentaries, plays, adaptations, screenplays, opera libretti, children’s books and interactive multimedia. Originally from Dublin, Felicity has enjoyed a self-coined ‘best of both worlds’ life in Kerry and London; the latter to which she first moved as a young actress. Felicity’s Dingle residence has proven a key source of inspiration to much of her writing. She has collaborated with husband Wilf Judd; their most recent book, Dingle and its Hinterland – People, Places and Heritage (Collins Press), was published this year. Felicity has also written a highly-regarded memoir, The House on an Irish Hillside (2012, Hodder & Stoughton), about her relationship with Corca Dhuibhne, which began at seventeen when she studied the Irish language there.
Felicity’s first novel, The Library at the Edge of the World (2016, Hachette), introduces us to her librarian protagonist Hanna Casey and the fictional Finfarran Peninsula. The author’s next installment in the series, Summer at the Garden Café, reunites us with Hanna, this time focusing on her daughter Jazz. Felicity’s mesmerizing storytelling gift has been likened to that of her late mentor, Maeve Binchy.
Summer at the Garden Café (€18.99) by Felicity Hayes-McCoy is published by Hachette Ireland. Dingle and its Hinterland: People, Places and Heritage (€14.99) is published by Collins Press. Both titles are available now from all good bookshops.
On home
I live in two places – Corca Dhuibhne, when I’m in Ireland, and Bermondsey in the UK. Bermondsey’s a stunning part of inner-city London. It’s on the South Bank, close to Tower Bridge and Tate Modern, and we moved there when it was still a slightly dodgy area. Now it’s getting increasingly cool and trendy, with restaurants, wine bars and lifestyle shops, and Zandra Rhodes’ iconic Fashion and Textile Museum means young fashion designers are setting up pop-up boutiques. But it’s kept its gritty, industrial edge, which I love. And the architecture is amazing. We live in a former Edwardian jam factory, and from our flat we can look up and see Renzo Piano’s soaring, gleaming Shard. Meanwhile, in the West Kerry Gaeltacht, we can sit outside our little Congested Districts Board house on the side of a mountain and taste salt-spray blown on Atlantic winds.
On roots
I’m a Dubliner, and my childhood was full of trips to Blackrock and walks round Howth Head, or along Sandymount Strand. The seaside was all about tin buckets and spades and sand castles, and ‘99’ ice-cream cones, and bags of fish and chips. I used to love walks by the Liffey too, and poking round second-hand bookstalls along the quays. When I first came to London I instinctively orientated myself by the river, which may be why I’ve ended up living so close to the Thames.
On London town
After doing a degree at UCD I trained in London as an actress. I suppose that, ever since Shakespeare’s time, all roads lead here if you want to go on the stage. For me, London has a wider attraction, though. I love the sense of freedom that comes with anonymity. Somewhere in Peter Ackroyd’s book London: The Biography he notes that, across the centuries, many writers have found that walking through London’s crowded streets has helped their creative process. There’s certainly a point in every book I write when I need to get away from the computer screen and walk for miles through the city. Where I go doesn’t particularly matter – it just seems to have something to do with the energy in the air.
On creating
In any given month I divide my time pretty equally between Ireland and England. Which means I have two desks at which I write. There are basic similarities; each is a pretty empty surface, because I can’t deal with clutter; and both face a blank wall, because I’m way too easily distracted! Otherwise, they’re very different. In Corca Dhuibhne, I have a window at my elbow, and a garden outside, full of birdsong and spuds and cabbages, with cattle in the surrounding fields and horses passing on the road. In Bermondsey, we have a live/work unit where my desk is in a semi-basement which still feels very industrial, and has a cast-iron pillar in the middle of the room supporting the floor above.
On bookshops
Dingle town has a great independent bookshop called An Café Liteartha. It’s a book lover’s dream, tucked away down Dykegate Street, off Main St. Having begun life as a café in 1934, it expanded into a bookshop nearly twenty years ago. The books are at the front, filling all the wall space right up to the ceiling, and stacked in piles in the centre of the shop. The café’s in the back room, where, in terms of design, nothing seems to have changed since the 1950s. And the owner, Seoirse Ó Luasa, is a proper bookseller. He stocks everything from academic tomes to the latest best-selling chick-lit – even Irish language translations of Harry Potter!
On her nightstand
When I’m writing a novel I tend to read non-fiction and biographies, and often I’ll return to books that I’ve read before. At the moment I’m re-reading Vera Brittain’s Testament of Friendship. She wrote it in 1940, looking back at the work of her friend Winifred Holtby who’d campaigned between the two world wars for cross-border collaboration, and international commitment to social justice and peace. It’s a wonderfully written book, but fairly depressing, considering the current state of the world. So, to cheer myself up, I’m simultaneously dipping in an out of Dorothy Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise. I first read it ages ago, so I already know ‘who dunnit’, but it’s still a great read. Oh, and I’ve broken my non-fiction and old favourites rule for Jill Dawson’s The Crime Writer, a stunning novel within a novel, in which the crime writer Patricia Highsmith is both subject and protagonist.
On escapes
Having found our ‘best of both worlds’ life between London and the Gaeltacht, I never seem to feel the need to escape. Creative artists certainly need a focus outside their work, though. I find that the sense of community in Ireland promotes balance. In Corca Dhuibhne I’m never going to be anything but a blow-in, but I’m blessed with lovely neighbours who treat me as if I belong. Dropping into Siopa an Búailtín in Baile an Fheirtéaraigh for a takeaway coffee, or going to a session in a local pub, provides the antithesis of London’s anonymity. People know your name, and smile and chat. The weather matters hugely, and you’re always aware of the seasons. I guess you could say that the whole way of life is conducive to a kind of mindfulness – even if it expresses itself in long walks on beaches and chats over coffee and cake!
On Maeve Binchy
Maeve was my Latin teacher at school. She was formidably clever and challenging and her lessons were always exciting. Years later, when I was a scriptwriter on the TV development of a series of her short stories, I realised how those qualities of shrewdness and clear-minded intelligence underpinned the warmth and charm of her novels. She was a joy to work with, though she took no prisoners. No one knew better than Maeve that working writers tend to juggle several projects at once, yet whenever she rang to discuss a draft she expected your pencil to be sharpened and her script to be by the phone. But her notes were miracles of precision and she had a crystal clear sense of her characters and of her own voice as an author.
I still can’t quite believe she’s gone and, like all her friends, I miss her dreadfully. She was immensely kind and utterly unsentimental. I loved her energy and enthusiasm, her courage and grace in the face of ill-health, and her huge sense of fun. One of the things I miss most – along with her unstoppable flow of conversation – is her endless stream of post cards, full of advice and encouragement, and written in an almost illegible scrawl.
On what’s next
I’m writing the next novel in the Finfarran series. There’s a stage when you’re working on a book when it’s all flowing, and what you need is to keep your head down and get on. Maeve used to say that if anyone interrupted her at that stage she’d shoot off a postcard saying ‘I’m writing at the height of my powers’. What it actually meant most of the time was ‘back off, I’m not sure what I’m doing’, but it was a great way of keeping people at bay. Just this week I’ve emerged from that stage and sailed into calmer waters, so I’m looking forward to getting back to reading other people’s books!
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