A respected figure in Irish literature as a writer, editor and literary critic, Sinéad Gleeson has been a relentless champion of Irish female writers.
In 2015 she compiled and edited The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers, followed a year later by The Glass Shore, a short story anthology showcasing female writers from the north of Ireland. Two years ago, she co-edited This Woman’s Work: Essays on Music.
Her 2019 collection of non-fiction essays, Constellations, inspired by the female body and her experiences of illness, won her critical acclaim and awards, yet the Dublin writer confesses she was “very nervous” about publishing fiction because she was “afraid it wouldn’t be good”.
“A lot of Constellation was about my life and difficult subjects such as the body, illness and grief. For that reason, some critics may give you a pass on that one. With a novel you have nowhere to hide,” says the mother-of-two.
Twelve years ago, she started writing “a novel about an island, a mysterious sound and an artist called Nell”.
This month sees its publication. Hagstone, takes its name from the ‘lucky’ stones found on a beach with one hole bored in them.
In the book she writes about the stones, saying “if you look through the hole you’re meant to see a different view of the world.”
Hagstone, is a book that proves that in her 50th year, the time has come to see herself as a novelist and to finally start championing herself.
“Novels are very immersive. I would chip away and do bits here and there, but I never had the time to sit down and focus. When Covid lockdown came there were no collaborations and no festivals to chair, and I got it over the line.
“I guess I took my time because I wanted to be sure it was the best version of what I could have written. But I won’t write like that again. I will just try and make the space if I can and get it down quickly,” adds Gleeson, who has already started her second.
Not surprisingly, the haunting debut, places women at its centre. Hagstone tells the story of artist Nell and a commune of women, the Inions (a word that comes from the Irish word meaning the daughters). They choose to lead a self-sustaining life, “outside the parameters the world was desperate to impose on them”.
When Nell is invited into their renovated hilltop convent Rathglas, to create an artwork chronicling their history, she gets to know the women and why they fled the outside world.
But as she spends more time amongst the Inions, she learns that power struggles exist, even within a ‘sanctuary’, and questions her own beliefs and direction in life.
Key to Gleeson’s story, which juxtaposes the hunger for community and the hunger for solitude is its rugged island setting.
Although a city dweller, mother-of-two Gleeson admits she has a fascination with islands.
“I’m fascinated with islands. If I go anywhere and there’s an island nearby, I’m on the first boat. As well as the landscape I love how islands are so contained and have a huge sense of community.”
The island in Hagstone is unnamed. “I wanted it to be a 12-hour ferry ride away to create a sense of claustrophobia and add to the fact it’s a difficult place to escape from. However, it is very rooted in various places I’ve been,” says Gleeson, who did a short residency on Galway’s Aran Islands.
Through her words, Gleeson brings the land and seascape to life, creating a fluoroscope for the senses.
“Islands, especially Irish ones, are very visual places, full of colour and texture. I could smell the salty water as I wrote, I could picture Nell’s cottage and count every brick in the lighthouse. The trick was to translate that into words,” says Gleeson, who on her island visits would make notes and take photos and videos to jig her memory.
Gleeson’s imagined island is Nell’s home and her muse. It is the source of inspiration for her art, rooted in landscape, folklore and femininity.
“It’s strange that someone I’ve made up feels more real to me that the real people I’ve written about with my non-fiction.
“Nell doesn’t do what society expects women to do - get married and have babies. We don’t hear from enough of those kinds of complicated women in literature.”
During the novel Nell becomes involved with two men: local man Cleary and American actor Nick, who has moved to the island with a movie project in mind.
However, far from writing a love story, Gleeson astutely explores the realities of Nell’s life and the sacrifices she makes to devote her life to art.
”The art world that Nell is in is very competitive and fickle. To make her kind of art you must compromise.
“She’s full of desire, and she likes being with men, but Nell’s choice is to exist inside her art because she worries that getting involved with someone is going to derail her.
“She lives on the island on her own terms and when she gets the invitation from this group of women, who live on their own terms, there is a curiosity there.”
Gleeson’s starting point for Hagstone was the phenomenon of an eerie and questionably supernatural sound that is present in certain areas, and which is audible to some and not others.
“It’s called different names, ‘a murmuring’ or ‘the hum’. I’d been reading about this for a long time, and I heard about one in Co Kerry. So, when we were on holiday in Cork 12 years ago, I made my husband drive about 100km to visit this town. I couldn’t hear the sound, but the phenomenon never left me.”
It’s strange that someone I’ve made up feels more real to me that the real people I’ve written about with my non-fiction
— Sinéad Gleeson
Whilst “the sound” is referred to in Hagstone, like many novelists, the direction and focus of Gleeson’s story changed.
“It was always about Nell, but one day I was doing something random and boring when I had this image of these women with their arms linked in the water and I thought who these women are? And then I explored what brought them from all over the world to Rathglas,” she explains.
Hagstone also distils thought-provoking ideas about solitude, community, power, religion, the supernatural, love, loneliness, womanhood, art and our natural environment.
“In novel writing I love how you can create a whole world and filter in some of your own thoughts and ideas. Whilst Hagstone is about Nell and the Inions, overall, it’s a book about living the authentic life you want, no matter what.”
And does a film adaptation beckon?
“We’ll see,” she laughs. “I think because it’s very visual people are making those connections,” adds Gleeson, refusing to name her dream cast.
