Anne Emery. One of Canada’s Finest Mystery Writers

by Wendy Hawkin | Nov 14, 2022 | author interview, Canadian writers, crime, Ireland, journal, Uncategorized

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of reading and reviewing Anne Emery’s latest Irish novel, Fenian Street. You can read the full review in my Reviews. I reached out to Anne with some questions, and she graciously answered them in the following interview.

I’ve set two books in my series in Ireland, one on the West Coast, and the other in the Iron Age midlands (it’s about Old Croghan Man). I’m currently writing book 5 which is taking me back there again. I’ve travelled to Ireland a few times to do research (2005, 2006, 2017) and have threatened to move there many times. I love to walk on the land my characters walk on and feel the energy. Did you travel to Fenian Street yourself to do this research? What kind of research did you do? I loved doing pub research and made one of my characters an old trad player;)

I spend quite a bit of time in Ireland. Members of my family had their origins in several of the Irish counties. My first visit was in the 1980s; a friend and I took the train from Dublin to Belfast in the midst of the euphemistically-named Troubles, i.e., the war. I saw cars being stopped and searched at checkpoints, saw the tanks, and the British soldiers in the streets with their rifles. We were searched whenever we entered the city centre. In later years, I’ve been making yearly trips to Ireland, basing myself in Dublin and visiting other parts of the country. I have friends there, and that certainly adds to the good times.

As for research, I’m a bit of a fanatic. Even at home in Halifax, I’ll drive or walk along the streets to make sure I don’t have a character going the wrong way on a one-way street. I’ll look over a familiar building, and make sure I have the correct architectural style and period. For Fenian Street and my other Irish novels, I spend time in the various locations, taking photos of the streets and buildings, chatting with people there.

My twelfth book, The Keening, was a standalone historical novel. It is set in County Fermanagh between 1595 and 1607, and has a present-day plot as well.  For the historical parts, every single line had to be researched.  I couldn’t just say, “They went to the castle.” How did they get there? Walk, horse, carriage? I read dozens of books, even more articles, had interviews with professors, archaeologists, curators, and others, in person and online. And I received great assistance from the librarians in Enniskillen. When I told a friend here about my plans for the book, he said, “By the time you finish, you’ll have a PhD.” Meaning I’d have done as much research as I would for a doctorate. And he was right; it was way more research than I had done for my masters degree. When The Keening was launched, my husband and daughter sent me flowers with a card: “Congratulations on your PhD in Irish History!” And, like you, I’ve done a whack of “pub research” in my day!

I see you have contacts in the Garda Siochana. Did you just reach out to them? What was it like writing a Garda’s life?

I am very grateful to the owner of an Irish bar here in Halifax (where I’ve had several of my book launches). He had met Liam, the retired Garda detective, when the detective visited Halifax and stopped in at the bar. So, I had an introduction, and Liam and I corresponded by email for two years. He was enormously helpful with all my questions about the Garda, police culture and procedure in Ireland, and so much more. Then, on my most recent trip to Dublin, I offered to treat him to supper or drinks, and we agreed to meet. On my way to the bar, I asked myself, “How will I know him from the other fellas in the bar?” Turned out, there was no question who was the garda in the room: I copped on to him, so to speak, right away! I had some great times in Dublin with him and his wife, and I look forward to seeing them again.

Dialect. You use dialect so well, I was instantly transported to Dublin. I jotted down a list in the back of the book of all the ways to talk alcohol;) What was it like writing an entire book in dialect? How did you get it right?

Thank you for those kind words!

Writing dialogue is my favourite part of the process. I could spend hours with a group of people and not remember a thing about what they wore. But I can recount conversations, often word-for-word, and I can remember the cadences and the tones of voice. And I’ve had lots of conversations in Ireland. Take a train from, say, Dublin to Cork, and the person beside you will keep the chat going for the full two and a half hours, all of it entertaining. I’ve stayed in touch with a couple of people I met during train rides, made friends that way.

Spending all that time in Ireland affords me a familiarity with various dialects and, whenever I’m in doubt about a word or phrase, I’ll search for it on Google, to see if I can find it on an Irish site, to make sure it’s genuine. Currently, Fenian Street is being done as an audiobook by an actor originally from Dublin, Ashley O’Connell, so he’s well able for all those Dub voices!

I have one friend near Waterford and based my characters loosely off some young women my daughter lived with when she stayed in Galway to work for a year in 2005. And I have another friend near Glasgow I run lines by when my books take me to Scotland. Did you run your story by someone for a dialect check? Did you start thinking in Shay’s voice? I can sure hear it in the text. I’d be dreaming in dialect. Did you?

Yes, I do hear the characters’ voices in my head, whether I’m awake or dreaming. When a character says something in the Irish language – as Gaeilge – I always check with one of the professors in the Irish Studies program here at St. Mary’s University. He has been a great help to me in my writing.

How does being a lawyer affect your views? Given you write politically pro-Republican have you ever been criticized for your characters’ views or actions?

Oh, yes, being a lawyer has had a great influence on my writing. One of my main characters, Monty Collins, is a criminal lawyer. And I love writing courtroom scenes – with the proviso, of course, that the dramatic stuff must take precedence over procedure!

As for my Irish Republican characters, yes, I am generally in accord with their view, that is, that the 800 years of occupation of Ireland (in whole or in part) should be brought to a decisive end, and Ireland united as one country. But I belabour the question over and over, as my characters do. Brennan Burke in particular, priest and philosopher, agonizes over “just war” theory and its application to the situation in Ireland. He knows all too well that, even when a cause is a just one, the means of fighting for that cause are often far from just.  

I remember one encounter here in Nova Scotia. On a day trip out of town, I happened to see a woman I used to work with. She was with her husband. He told me he was reading my book Ruined Abbey. I’m sure I turned pale at the hearing of it! His family is from Portadown in the North of Ireland. Portadown is known as a bastion of “unionism/loyalism”, that is, union with and loyalty to Britain. It is as far as you can get from a hotbed of Irish Republicanism! He was very courteous but allowed as how he didn’t agree with some of what I had written (that was understating things, I’m sure), and I said, “Oh, I understand completely.” And I said we should sit down someday and talk it over. And I hope we do.

Do you have anything in particular you’d like me to mention in my review.

I suppose you could add that the idea for Fenian Street came directly from the street itself. I’m familiar with the street and I thought, “That will be the title of a future book.” It’s all the more appropriate because of the double entendre. It’s the name of a street in working-class Dublin, but there is also the fact that an Irish Republican could say, “We’re all on Fenian Street, are we not?” The Fenians were 19^th-century Irish revolutionaries, and the name still carries a powerful charge today. It is frequently used as a sectarian slur in the North of Ireland.

Any idea how long you’ll keep writing Collins-Burke Mysteries?

I’m hoping to keep writing the series indefinitely, le cúnamh Dé (God willing/with the help of God).  As you’ve heard countless times before, “I always wanted to write a book.” All my life, I loved to write. I remember thinking how grand it would be to “have written a book” – there it is on the shelf, ambition realized. But half-way through my first book, Sign of the Cross, it struck me that I could not give this up; I’d have to write a series. That’s how addictive writing can be, as I’m sure you know.

For more on Anne Emery and her books, go to her website.