Leanne O’Connell talks home, family, success and what is on her desk …
Leeanne O’Donnell was born in Dublin and now lives in an old farmhouse in West Cork. She started her career working in radio with RTÉ and BBC, and has made a number of award-winning documentaries, including The Ladies of Llangollen, about two Irish aristocrats who ran away together in the 18th century, and Diving and Falling about dancer and artist Lucia Joyce, daughter of James. She is also a psychotherapist. Her debut novel, Sparks of Bright Matter, was published earlier this year by Eriu.
ON HOME Home for me is an old farmhouse in Ballydehob, where I live with my partner and children. It’s a very special place to me; a place where I feel really at home. It’s on the foothills of Mount Gabriel and it feels like quite a magical place at times. We didn’t know anybody when we moved here 18 years ago. We were living in London and a close friend of mine died, so I just thought, I need to find a way to live that’s going to really help me feel alive and connected to this lucky thing of being alive because it is such a lucky thing to be alive. I was working for the BBC in an ad-hoc freelance way, which sounded great, but it wasn’t great; it wasn’t right for me. There is something about a tragedy that makes you realise that life has to be seized with both hands and there’s no point in living a life that doesn’t fit you.
ON FAMILY I was the eldest of three – I have a younger sister and brother. My parents thought they weren’t going to be able to have children and then they had three children in three years. The week I turned three my little brother was born, so I had this idea that I was the big one, but as I got older, I realised we were all basically the same age. We’re closer now than we’ve ever been. Both of my parents have passed away and we had to navigate all of that, so there’s a real sense of just treasuring our connection now.
ON MY DESK I think it’s important to say, as a woman writer, that this notion of a desk of your own, the idea of any space in the house that people aren’t on top of, is an illusion. When I started writing this book, I remember getting this feeling for a story and opening my laptop on the kitchen counter. My daughter, who was only about three, was on my leg and something was on the stove. There was no desk, but I just had to find a little bit of space in the middle of everything. Then I bought a secondhand caravan for the garden and did most of the writing for this book in there. I think, where possible, the room of one’s own is the best way to do it, but don’t wait for it. You can’t wait for the room of one’s own. A lot of women would be waiting a long time to be granted that space.
ON SUCCESS Success for me is about finding out the contribution you can make, the thing that you can do in a way that nobody else can, and offering that into the collective consciousness. It’s making something that might connect with people’s hearts and minds; something that might make things a little better, or more beautiful or more true, and getting that into the world to the people who need it and want it. It’s good to remind ourselves that we’re doing something that’s supposed to be about making the world a little bit more bearable.
ON BOOKSHOPS My local bookshop in Schull is called Worm Books and it’s about the size of a big bedroom, but is really well curated. The best thing you could possibly have in a village is a little, loved bookshop. My neighbour works there a few days a week and, one day, I was sitting out in a rare bit of sunshine when she walked up the lane and hand-delivered my book order to me. That kind of community connection is amazing.
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