Talking writing on Hannah’s Bookshelf … and a trip down memory lane to An Spidéal in 1988
— Hannah Kate (@HannahKateish) March 9, 2024
#OnAir now… It's my pleasure to welcome Clár Ní Chonghaile (@clarnic) to Hannah's Bookshelf.
I was delighted to get a chance to talk all things books and writing with Hannah Kate on Hannah’s Bookshelf, a weekly literature show on North Manchester FM.
The show was broadcast on Saturday, March 9, but if you missed it and fancy listening to me talking about my newest book, No Good Deed, as well as my other three novels — Fractured, Rain Falls on Everyone, and The Reckoning — and the themes that inspire me you can listen back here: https://www.mixcloud.com/Hannahs_Bookshelf/hannahs-bookshelf-with-special-guest-clár-ní-chonghaile-09032024/
Hannah’s Bookshelf is a really fabulous show: as well as interesting chat, there is great music interspersed throughout. I was thrilled to hear the first song chosen by Hannah for our conversation was The Whole of the Moon by The Waterboys, a song I have always loved and that has a special link to the place where I grew up.
In 1988, the Waterboys spent six months in An Spidéal, my home town in County Galway. They stayed in the Big House, or Buckleys, at the end of our road as they recorded part of their Fisherman’s Blues album. My classmates at Coláiste Chroí Mhuire even interviewed singer Mike Scott for that year’s edition of the school magazine — Meascán.
In the interview, Mike Scott said that he was walking down a street in New York and saw the moon and thought of those classic lines: “I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon”. The rest is history. Here’s a picture of the very youthful Mike Scott at our school, and a picture of the interview, as Gaeilge go deimhin.
