National treasure SHEILA O’FLANAGAN had a busy career as a bond dealer and financial journalist with the Irish Times before finding her true calling as a novelist. She talks to SOPHIE GRENHAM about life in Clontarf, her favourite books, Spanish fiestas and her IMMENSE SUCCESS …
Sheila O’Flanagan first book Dreaming of a Stranger, published in 1997, was an instant hit. Sheila’s work, once described as ‘necessary to women as chocolate, and just as addictive’ has topped the popular fiction charts ever since.
Sheila won the Irish Tatler Literary Woman of the Year award in 2003 and the highly coveted Bord Gais Energy Award for Popular Fiction in 2011.
2015 saw the publication of her twentieth novel My Mother’s Secret and added to her pile of number one books this year will be The Missing Wife and The Crystal Run, her first children’s book.
Sheila lives in Dublin with her husband.
On home
I live in Clontarf which is frequently referred to as a ‘leafy suburb’ in the property supplements. However, I’m at the business end of the Bay which is perfect for me as I’m a city girl at heart. At the same time, when you turn towards Howth, the walk along the promenade is spectacular. I love being near the sea no matter what the weather. There are lots of local businesses in the area and I like to shop and eat nearby when I can. My regular haunts for a quick break are The Food Rooms and Ebb & Flow, both on the coast road and both serving great coffee and lunchtime food. On Thursday evenings I can often be found in Kavanagh’s pub on the Malahide Road where Ángel, the Galician chef, does the best tapas outside Spain. In fact his albondigas (meatballs) are better than some I’ve had in Spain.
On creating
I wrote my first book in the garage in my house which had been converted by the previous owners into a very basic study. But the insulation was terrible and I was cold all the time so when I finally gave up the day job to concentrate on writing I had the extension remodelled. Now my writing space is upstairs. It’s a long, narrow room with lots of natural light which is really important to me. My desk is beside a full length window overlooking the garden. Between books, my desk is very neat but over the course of writing it disappears beneath a forest of coloured sticky notes and random pieces of paper. There are lots bookshelves in the room too, mostly non-fiction and reference books. I also have a ‘wall of fame’ of framed bestseller lists – I felt I had to do something to acknowledge the fact that my books have done well, Since his retirement a few years ago, my husband does a lot of proof-reading for me so he has a small desk at the other end of the room from where he’ll occasionally shout questions like, “why has her car changed from green on page 5 to blue on page 265?”
On her favourite novels
There are far too many books I’ve loved to narrow it down to just five. But these five have been re-read many times so that must qualify them for special status. Small Island by Andrea Levy, The Golf Omnibus by PG Wodehouse, Wolf Hall & Bring, Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Ecco, The Blue Nowhere by Jeffrey Deaver.
On her holiday home
I’m lucky because I have a house in Spain which I visit whenever I can. Although it’s a place I relax, it’s also a place I go when I want to edit my books with no interruptions. Mirroring my house in Clontarf, I have a writing room which overlooks my garden – but also the nearby salt lake. The nearest local town to me is Rojales, about 45 km from Alicante. Spanish towns have a huge sense of community and they’re big into fiestas of one sort or another throughout the year. The ones in the summer are amazing, with lots of street parties and fireworks and we’re lucky to have Spanish friends who invite us to local events. This year we were there for the Cabalgata de Reyes in January, where the three wise men parade through the town and hand out sweets to the children. It was fantastic fun. There are plenty of excellent family-run restaurants in the town, but our favourite pub is the Aljibe (the Water Well) where they serve the best gin and tonic in the world.
On success
My publishers, Hachette, organised a wonderful cocktails and dinner evening in Dublin to celebrate book number 20. I’ve been with them for most of my writing career and there is a real sense of teamwork in working with them. I find it hard to believe that I’ve written 20 novels – my ambition had always been simply to write one. But when the floodgates opened I simply couldn’t stop. I truly don’t really measure my career in highlights – my main focus is in trying to make each book better than the last. But of course getting to number one in the bestseller lists both here and abroad is always fantastic. Seeing my books in translation is wonderful too – getting my Chinese editions was particularly great. Perhaps a definite highlight was finally winning the Bord Gais Energy Award for Popular Fiction – I’d been nominated about four times previously and I thought it was going to be a case of having to wait till I was 80 and then getting a sympathetic lifetime achievement award for turning up in a new dress every year…
My Mother’s Secret (Headline, €22.50) is out on paperback on February 25th, The Crystal Run (Hodder, €19.50) on May 26th and The Missing Wife (Headline, €25.50) on the 16th of June in bookstores nationwide.
Sophie Grenham
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