Oileán na Samhlaíochta – Éilís Ní Dhuibhne i gcomhrá le hAnna Heussaff and Réaltán Ní Leannáin / The Island of Imagination - Éilís Ní Dhuibhne in conversation with Anna Heussaff and Réaltáin Ní Leannáin

Um, the next one was definitely very based on fictionalized biography, because one of my grandfathers went over to Malta in the First World War with the British Army, um, came back and joined the other army, as my aunt poetically puts it, um, at the end of the First World War, and then rode off to get himself a postal bride from Malta, because that's where he'd been stationed during the First World War.

And the nice priest, parish priest in Malta sent him over a series of, "Well, which one do you want?" Oh.

[laughs] Did he send photographs or...? No.

It's too ...

No, no, no.

He simply sent, sent details.

Okay.

So he picked the daughter of a publican.

[laughs]

Because he was a drinker.

Anyway, that's besides the point.

[laughs]

Gale.

[laughs] That's the part I didn't put in.

[laughs] Anyway.

Yeah, in your options, allow.

No, no, no.

You should.

So anyway, I started off with, um, sort of stories about that, and then it moved into total fictionalization, and I had the very hard job of having to go to Malta to do the research.

[laughs]

Oh.

Anyway, that was next.

And then I went back to short stories, and I've done a few radio plays and a bit of poetry here and there since, which is much better than the first collection, I'm telling you.

Um, but anyway, as Anna says, a little bit of everything.

Um, and people keep saying, "You know, you have to do another novel." And I'm going, "Well, well, yeah, in my own time." Because novels take- A long time.