Interview

Paul Lynch discusses the influences behind his first book, Red Sky in Morning, and how it differs from his sophomore novel, The Black Snow.

Your first book Red Sky in Morning was inspired by the real-life Duffy's Cut tragedy. What attracted you to it as a story?
The moment I came across what happened at Duffy's Cut I knew I would have to write about it — I sensed that it contained the sort of dimensionality you want for a novel. As I was writing it I began to see in it a story of power, corruption and our atavistic natures — that deep tribal racism that is always at work. I could see in it a tale of our basic need to make good of ourselves, and the flipside that emigrants do not always make good. That sometimes they disappear off the face of the earth, and so the story conjures the abyss. I also see in it an allegory for where we are today.

And then there was the simple fact I grew up in the area where a lot of these men came from. I went to school, no doubt, with their distant relatives. I could see their faces. Hear them speak. See the way they carried themselves. You do not choose what you write about - an idea crawls under your skin and nucleates until there is nothing left to do but write it out.

You've said that Red Sky in Morning began to reflect aspects of the current economic situation in Ireland and the ensuing emigration epidemic...