What’s The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature?

It’s a prestigious award given annually to an emerging Irish writer. Trinity College and the former US Ambassador to Ireland, the late Dr. Daniel Rooney are responsible for the prize. Previous winners include: Anne Enright, Colum McCann, Mike McCormack and Deirdre Madden. Caitriona Lally won the Rooney in 2018 for her debut novel ‘Eggshells’.

Some background

‘Eggshells’ was originally published by Liberties Press in Ireland in 2015 but it fell out of print. Last year it was released in North America, however Caitriona had given up a good deal of hope considering it was only available to order online in Ireland. I asked the author what it felt like to win such a prestigious literary award, to which she replied,

“It’s a boost of confidence, the feeling that people are recognising your work”.

The novel tells the story of Vivian, a changeling (a fairy-child who is swapped at birth with a human child), who wanders around modern day Dublin looking for a ‘portal’ that will bring her back home to the fairy-world. The narrator offers a refreshing and often laugh out loud, spit-out-your-coffee worldview with some explosively funny one-liners (disclaimer: I only write that when I genuinely do spit out my coffee from laughter while reading). She writes with every colour in the imaginative spectrum, descriptions bursting like ripe fruit from the pages. A personal favourite from ‘Eggshells’, 

‘She looked at me like I was Christmas in July.’

Ideas from unlikely street names

The idea for the novel sprung from long walks Caitriona took around Dublin the year she was unemployed. Armed with her notebook, she paid particular attention to street names and public clocks. Here she noticed that many street names had letters faded away, spelling entirely new names (‘Prussia’ Street becomes ‘russia Street’ when the ‘P’ is faded). From there Vivian arrived, the perfect protagonist to document the observations that go largely unnoticed by the people of Dublin. All of this lends itself to the strong sense of place that ‘Eggshells’ has. A reader can close their eyes and walk with Vivian (not dissimilar from a certain Bloom), around dear dirty Dublin. Her descriptions cultivate a strong sense of place that she says “roots the book, because it’s not heavily plotted”.   

‘Eggshells’ was written for the Novel Fair at the Irish Writers Centre where the initial synopsis was shortlisted for a prize that resulted in a publishing deal, which Caitriona subsequently won. Prior to that Caitriona took a year long evening course in creative writing in her early thirties. When she graduated from English at Trinity she said “I had no clue I ever would want to write. I was thinking of travelling.”  

Maps feature heavily in ‘Eggshells’, with most chapters ending on a shape that corresponds to the route that Vivian, the protagonist, walked that day. This interest in maps was refreshingly different, one I don’t come across often in novels. I asked Caitriona about her cartographical fixation and she responded,

“I’m fascinated by maps, but the odd thing is, I can’t actually read them. I have boxes of them and they’re all over the house […] I’m fascinated by the potential in them and the stories behind them”.

On Writing

Writers can have particular routines when it comes to getting work done, but Caitriona explained that her writing time was always bending and contracting to fit the time she had; when she was unemployed she walked around the city writing pages in her notebook, but when she was working she wrote the manuscript for ‘Eggshells’ in the morning and evening, “you just have to be militant about using your time.” She stressed the importance of forcing yourself to write, even when you don’t want to: “When I talk about my writing routine I feel like a fraud sometimes, because I spent nearly four years struggling with the second novel but a lot of that wasn’t actually writing, it was just giving up on it for a few months and doing anything but writing”

It was humbling to hear that Caitriona’s vices were the same as most writers, Rooney Prize or no Rooney Prize:  

“I would love to know how to stop the voice in my head that says ‘this is crap’. I have to force myself to ignore it and force myself to type beyond that voice”.

Her second novel is still in the manuscript phase. Caitriona mentioned that she had just printed out a very rough draft which she is editing, although she hasn’t shown it to anyone yet. Her next novel was inspired by several visits to the Model Railway Exhibition in Hamburg which leaves enough to intrigue all readers alike. Charming and grounded are two adjectives I would describe the 2018 Rooney prize winner with. If you haven’t already, you should read this witty and astute novel. Catriona’s parting advice was this:

“Writing is a bit like going for a run, you might not want to do it at the start but you’ll almost certainly feel better after.”