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Irish Times
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
‘Dún Laoghaire is a place of such contrasts - it has yacht clubs and sunshine, but also a darker side'
From the front of the Royal Marine Hotel, the harbour town of Dún Laoghaire looks glorious under a summer blue sky. It seems the perfect idyll for the perfect life, which is why Dublin author Gill Perdue chose it as the backdrop for her latest crime novel. Sipping coffee with hot milk in the foyer of the Victorian hotel, a relaxed and chatty Perdue emphasises the impact the town had on The Night I Killed Him. It wasn't just the setting, she says – it drove the plot. 'Dún Laoghaire is a place of such contrasts. You have the beautiful glittering marina, the boats, all the different yacht clubs, old Victorian buildings, the sunshine, but you also have a darker side, and in a way, that's what I'm always looking for. And I wanted somebody who was living this wonderful lifestyle on the surface, but underneath, there was something darker going on.' The 'somebody' she refers to is Gemma Fitzgerald, a social media influencer around whom the story centres. She's not the hard-sell, vacuous type beloved of some dramas, but someone with a genuine connection to her followers, along with a beautiful home, a handsome yachting husband and an adorable young son. Her life is picture perfect, but she also lives with a dark secret about the disappearance of her golden-child brother, Max, 18 years earlier. And when his body is discovered, the tension created in this nerve-racking and pacy read is palpable. READ MORE Gill Perdue in Dún Laoghaire. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw Perdue's first adult work, If I Tell, was shortlisted for Crime Novel of the Year at the 2022 Irish Book Awards, and was followed by When They See Me, in 2023. Both featured Garda specialist victim interviewers Laura Shaw and Niamh Darmody. The duo continue in The Night I Killed Him, which has attracted praise from a plethora of writers including Jane Casey, Liz Nugent, Jake Arnott, Andrea Mara and Marian Keyes. [ Helping the traumatised to speak: The role of the specialist victim interviewer Opens in new window ] Perdue, who lives in Rathfarnham, Co Dublin, with her husband, has a particular skill for characterisation. Strong women are her forte. Shaw and Darmody are powerful and complex, as well as entertaining and relatable. 'They each have their vulnerabilities, they have their complexities, they have their strengths, and they have their blind spots and weaknesses,' she says. 'They are just like me, my sisters, my friends, my daughters. They are very real.' Their relationship is leavened with lighthearted banter, including when Shaw walks down a corridor in a green two-piece suit. 'On board this aircraft there are six emergency exits, two doors at the rear of the cabin, left and right,' Darmody says before their boss growls from his office. Perdue credits her sense of humour to her family, and the Aer Lingus joke to her brother. 'Even in the bleakest times, humour can keep you going,' she says. Michelle Obama was saying she had to have counselling … I was delighted to hear her say that — Perdue on big life transitions Four-year-old Ferdia is compassionately drawn, due in part to Perdue's experience as a primary schoolteacher, as well as to her volunteer work for a children's helpline. It taught her a lot about children's struggles and how they spend so much of their time trying to please their parents. 'It's really hard to find a single child whose main goal is not to just please their parents and make them proud. You can see grown men weeping when their dad says, 'You know you make me proud, son', so it is everything.' She gave up the helpline when life took over. 'As soon as I had kids myself, I found it much more difficult ... It was like as if a layer had been taken off me.' Perdue works hard at her writing, but also puts much effort into the visible side of her career: the festivals and interviews, the book signings and social media presence. There was a point, though, before she rediscovered writing, when she felt invisible. She recalls her younger self who had heard of 'the invisibility of the middle-aged woman', but had attributed it to low self-esteem and poor self-care. Then, when her children were small, she took a career break from teaching, taught dance part-time, and found she had become part of the 'sandwich generation', raising teenagers and caring for elderly relatives. Her siblings were 'brilliant' and played their part, she says, but because she had more time, she could do more. And although she was happy to take on the role, she recalls always being in her car on her way somewhere or on her way back. She had written children's books in her 30s, and 'sort of wrote' during this generational caring phase, but found it difficult to carve out time. Her mother died in her 60s, then her grandmother and father died and, when her two daughters moved away, Perdue found herself 'suddenly in the empty house and floating around'. 'I kind of felt invisible. I just felt like: who am I? What am I? To a certain extent, you are what you do. So what was I doing? I felt I had sort of faded and become invisible, even to myself.' With that came a loss of confidence. It wasn't, she says, empty nest syndrome – the term applied to a sorrowful parent, mostly a mother, after children have moved away from home – because she had never defined herself through her children and was delighted they'd gone out into the world. 'But if you are keeping up your day job, and you're in and out of town and you're in your office workplace, and you're dealing with people, and they're adults ... you're just operating in the world fully engaged ... Your world can become very quiet when all that goes.' She became shy and found it difficult to speak in front of people. 'I needed to put myself in touch with who I used to be. So what did I always love doing? Well, I always loved writing. And I thought, Are you going to call yourself a writer? Have you even finished one thing?' This gave her 'a kick', and she told herself 'get out there and go for it'. She began 'engaging with the world rather than hiding away'. She invested in herself and took a summer school in fiction writing in London. At this point, in her 50s, she feared her classmates might think she was too old and ask why she wasn't taking up 'flower arranging or something'. But it wasn't the case, and she wasn't the oldest student. Perdue mentions former US first lady Michelle Obama, who recently spoke publicly about the help she needed as a 60-year-old to 'transition' into a life after her daughters left home. 'She was saying she had to have counselling ... I was delighted to hear her say that.' Returning to the subject of her time in England, she smiles with pleasure. 'It was a nice full-circle moment, because I stayed with my daughters in London, and went from the mummy minding them ... to them going 'Now, look, I'll put the app on your phone', and telling me what stop to get on, and only stopping short of making my school lunch.' It was a special time in her life. 'And writing gave me the courage to do that,' she says. The Night I Killed Him by Gill Perdue is published by Penguin Sandycove
Irish Times
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Amelia Loulli wins Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize
In The Irish Times tomorrow, a host of our leading authors and well-read critics recommend the best books of the year so far for your reading pleasure. Gill Perdue tells Fiona Gartland about her latest thriller, The Night I Killed Him. Stephen Collins reflects on Telling the Truth is Dangerous: How Robert Dudley Edwards changed Irish history forever, Neasa MacErlean's biography of her grandfather, who taught Collins at UCD. And Carol Drinkwater discusses her latest novel, her career and Irish roots. Reviews are Séamas O'Reilly on the best graphic novels of the year so far; Andrew Lynch on Fatherhood: A History of Love and Power by Augustine Sedgewick; Ruby Eastwood on It's Terrible the Things I Have to Do to Be Me: On Femininity and Fame by Philippa Snow; Claire Hennessy on the best YA fiction; John Boyne on Deep House: The Gayest Love Story Ever Told by Jeremy Atherton Lin; Jessica Traynor on Ocean by Polly Clark; Huda Awan on The Boys by Leo Robson; Tim Fanning on Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis by Tao Leigh Goffe; Philippa Conlon on All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman; Lucy Sweeney Byrne on Ordinary Love by Marie Rutkoski; Adrienne Murphy on After the Train, edited by Evelyn Conlon and Rebecca Pelan; Stan Erraught on Rebecca S Miller's Are You Dancing? Showbands, Popular Music and Memory in Ireland ; John Walshe on Human Resources: Slavery and the Making of Modern Britain – in 39 Institutions, People, Places and Things by Renay Richardson and Arisa Loomba; and Kevin Power on Oddbody by Rose Keating. This weekend's Irish Times Eason offer is The Drowned by John Banville, just €5.99, a €6 saving. Eason offer Amelia Loulli has won the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize 2025, supported by the Atlantic Philanthropies and run by The Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's University Belfast. READ MORE Loulli was announced as the winner for Slip, published by Jonathan Cape, during the award night readings in the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast. She is a PhD candidate at Newcastle University where she researches the poetics of breath and writing trauma. In 2021 she won a Northern Writers' Award and in 2023 she was writer in residence at the British School in Rome. She lives in Cumbria with her three teenagers. 'Thank you to the judges for choosing Slip as their winner,' Loulli said. 'It's hard to articulate how much it means, all these years after beginning to write Slip's first poems, to have this work recognised with such an honour. 'I wrote Slip in the hope that it might challenge inherited shame by opening conversations about the stories and experiences we find it hardest to share. I also wrote these poems as I write all of my poems- in a state of wonder at the immense power of language and in conversation with the poets I most appreciate and admire- many of whom are past winners of this very prize. I'm extremely grateful to the judges and to the Seamus Heaney Centre for confirming Slip in such excellent company.' This year's judges were Prof Fran Brearton, Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow Fiona Benson, and Dr Dawn Watson. The shortlist also included The Butterfly House, by Kathryn Bevis; High Jump as Icarus Story, by Gustav Parker Hibbett; rock flight, by Hasib Hourani; The Iron Bridge, by Rebecca Hurst; and Food for the Dead, by Charlotte Shevchenko Knight. The prize is awarded annually to a writer whose first full collection has been published in the preceding year, by a UK or Ireland-based publisher. The winning writer receives £5,000 and is invited to participate in the Seamus Heaney Centre's busy calendar of literary events. * ONE, an imprint of Pushkin Press, is to publish Little Vanities, the third novel by prizewinning author and critic Sarah Gilmartin next May. Set in Dublin, Little Vanities follows the decades-long friendship between two couples from their Trinity college days to early middle life. Exploring their marriages and intertwined relationships, the novel circles around a performance of Pinter's Betrayal, with the play's depiction of deception, hidden emotions and veiled motivations all too present in the real world. Displaying Gilmartin's flair for magnetic storytelling readers will expect from her novels Dinner Party and Service, Little Vanities weaves multiple timeframes and points of view into her most compelling and ambitious work yet. Gilmartin said: 'I'm very happy to be published once again by the brilliant Pushkin Press and can't wait for them to share Little Vanities with readers. It's a story about the messy, interconnected relationships of two couples approaching 40 who can't quite let go of their youthful desires and ambitions. An exploration of longing, as driver and destroyer, it looks at the lengths people are willing to go to in the pursuit of pleasure over pain.' Publisher Laura Macaulay said: 'I'm in awe of what Sarah Gilmartin has achieved with Little Vanities: it's a sexy, funny, irresistibly clever novel about betrayal and desire written with incisive bite – the characters are living with me still. Readers are going to love it.' Gilmartin won the Máirtín Crawford Short Story Award in 2020. Her debut novel Dinner Party (ONE, 2021) was shortlisted for an Irish Book Award and the Kate O'Brien Award. Her second novel Service (ONE, 2023) was a Washington Post top books of summer and included in the Irish Times list of the best Irish fiction of the 21st century (2025). She is the current Arts Council Writer-in-Residence at Dublin City University. * Bestselling thriller author Jo Spain has moved to Zaffre, the flagship adult commercial fiction imprint of Bonnier Books UK, in a six-figure deal. World English rights for three books were acquired by Zaffre publisher Ben Willis from Nicola Barr at Rye Literary. Never To Be Found, the first book in the deal, is a standalone thriller to be published June 2026. It's based on a chilling phenomenon in Japan known as Jōhatsu - people who vanish voluntarily from their lives. Spain is the author of 13 bestselling thrillers, including three No.1s. She is also a successful screenwriter, and, along with her writing partner David Logan, she showruns Harry Wild, now in its fifth season. On her own, she has written the new mini-series Mix Tape, which won the audience choice award at the prestigious U.S. festival SXSW and has just been released in Australia to rave reviews. The series has been picked up by BBC2 for a late summer release. She is currently adapting her own novels The Trial, with Metropolitan Pictures (Wednesday), The Last to Disappear with Finland MTV and Don't Look Back with Archery Pictures. * To mark the publication of Two Kinds of Stranger by Steve Cavanagh, the thriller writer will be doing an event at Eason's, O'Connell St, Dublin on Thursday, July 24th, at 7pm. Tickets at €5 will be available to buy from and are redeemable against the book. * The National Concert Hall, in collaboration with the ARINS project (Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South), the Royal Irish Academy and Notre Dame University, will present a landmark public event, For and Against a United Ireland, on November 30th, at 7.30pm. As part of the NCH Talks series, two of the island's most respected journalists and commentators, Fintan O'Toole and Sam McBride, will each present their arguments for and against a united Ireland, a timely and thought-provoking discussion based on their forthcoming book from the RIA. Tickets: €20 (Book & Ticket Bundle €35) * Nicola Sturgeon, former First Minister of Scotland, will discuss her memoir Frankly with writer and journalist Susan McKay at the Seamus Heaney HomePlace on Tuesday, August 19th, at 7.30pm. Tickets are £22.50. Frankly recounts her journey from working-class roots in Ayrshire to the forefront of Scottish politics as the country's first female - and longest-serving - First Minister. Dr Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire receiving his second PhD in March 2025 Irish Food History: A Companion, co-edited by Dr Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire of TU Dublin and graduate Dr Dorothy Cashman, has been named Best Culinary History Book in the World at the 2025 Gourmand Awards, held during the Cascais World Food Summit in Portugal. This global recognition highlights TU Dublin's international leadership in culinary arts scholarship and affirms the university's reputation as a centre of excellence in food culture, history, and academic publishing. Published by the Royal Irish Academy, Irish Food History: A Companion takes readers on a compelling journey through Ireland's culinary heritage from the Ice Age to the contemporary food scene. The richly illustrated volume features contributions from TU Dublin staff and graduates, including Dr Elaine Mahon, Dr Brian J. Murphy, Margaret Connolly, current PhD candidate Fionnán O'Connor, and PhD graduates Dr Tara McConnell and Dr John D. Mulcahy. The book's distinctive visual design is the work of Brenda Dermody from TU Dublin's School of Art and Design. Speaking at the award ceremony at the Estoril Congress Centre, Gourmand Awards founder Edouard Cointreau praised the publication, stating: 'Congratulations to the Royal Irish Academy, Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire and Dorothy Cashman on the publication of Irish Food History: A Companion! This expertly curated and richly illustrated volume offers an extraordinary journey through Ireland's culinary past. With contributions from leading historians and a masterful blend of storytelling, research, and evocative descriptions, the book is a treasure for anyone passionate about food, history, and cultural heritage.' Established in 1995, the Gourmand Awards are the only international competition dedicated to books on food and drink culture. Open to entries in all languages and involving over 200 countries annually, the awards are a global benchmark of excellence in food writing and scholarship. Mac Con Iomaire welcomed the award as a milestone moment for the university: 'We are overjoyed to have our book appreciated on the global stage. This accolade reflects not only the calibre of research and collaboration taking place at TU Dublin, but also the university's growing global influence in the culinary arts.'
