Martina Devlin is an acclaimed Irish author and newspaper columnist with a series of books to her name, including full-length novels, collections of short stories and works on non-fiction.
The Omagh-born, Dublin-based writer’s latest and ninth book, Charlotte, explores the connections of another literary figure, Charlotte Brontë, to Ireland. Devlin focused on fellow authors before. Edith was about her compatriot Edith Somerville. She has also written about Irish witches in The House Where It Happened, which led to a commemorative plaque erected in 2023 for the victims.
Her work has won awards, including the Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Prize and a Hennessy Literary Award, and she has been shortlisted three times for the Irish Book Awards.
Devlin has also been named as a commentator of the year for her weekly current affairs column in The Irish Independent, and she holds a PhD in literary practice from Trinity College Dublin, one of the universities in which she has lectured on Irish literature.
She spoke to Al Majalla about her work, the influences on it and the motivations behind her distinguished career. This is the conversation.
Your novels often explore complex themes, ranging from historical events to personal relationships. What draws you to these themes, and how do you balance historical accuracy with creative storytelling?
I am drawn to women who intrigue or inspire me and to women who were the victims of misogyny or injustice, such as the eight women accused of witchcraft in my novel The House Where It Happened, set in 1711 and based on a true story which I reimagined.
I enjoy a deep dive into research, and a real person leaves a trail. But sometimes, it feels like an act of plunder. Also, as the writer, you must choose which details matter most and which can be cut. You can’t jam them all in; you have to prioritise.
Much like a historian, I am essentially interpreting a chain of events. Facts should be treated with respect, but as a novelist, at some point, you must cast aside the weight of facts and allow the narrative to flow.
I’m very clear that my books are fiction. They are labelled as such, including this disclaimer at the beginning of my current novel: ‘This story does not claim to be the truth but is inspired by real events.’
In Truth & Dare, you celebrate the lives of women who shaped Ireland. How did you choose what women to feature in this collection, and what impact do you hope these stories will have on readers?
I see the women in this short story collection as sticks of dynamite—the repercussions from their actions still reverberate. In Ireland, women can vote, attend college, and enjoy workplace protection because of them.
The idea for the collection came to mind because the centenary of the vote for some women in Ireland and Britain was approaching in 2018, and I wanted to find a way to mark it. Recreating these women was an act of ventriloquism, but I didn’t intend it to be fake or disrespectful. For me, it was an act of celebration. I thought about who I admired and why—or perhaps it was partly a case of them choosing me.
Writing the stories made me feel like I was slipping inside each person’s skin. I felt like a fairy tale character who finds a swan’s coat, tries it on and is transformed. The women in Truth & Dare dared to imagine a different world, and I had to find a way to enter their world, too.
In your non-fiction work, you often tackle contemporary issues. How do you decide which topics to write about and ensure that your voice resonates with readers?
I constantly ask myself: what is the story? What’s engaging people’s attention currently? Why are they interested in this? Why does it matter?
Most writers also do other work because few novelists earn enough to live on their writing alone. As such, I kept a toe in journalism because I find current affairs fascinating.
I write an ‘op-ed’ for the Irish Independent opposite the editorial page where I comment on current affairs—from politics to economics to social injustice. Of course, my views don’t always align with readers’ views on every subject, but that’s understandable. Sometimes they contact me and tell me they agree or disagree, sometimes they write letters to the editor.
I try to have something different to say on any given subject. I treat it seriously, reflect for as long and hard as I can in advance, and do my research. Journalism is something you do quickly, whereas writing a novel is a slow process that requires multiple rewrites.
When people ask me if I’m a journalist or a writer, I always reply: "I am a storyteller". This love of storytelling was planted in me since childhood. I’m one of seven siblings, and our parents told us wonderful stories to keep us entertained as children.
A book you co-wrote with RTÉ journalist David Murphy, Banksters, explores the Irish banking crisis. What was the collaborative process like, and what are some of the key insights you included in the book?
I was considering writing a novel about Ireland’s financial collapse but felt that a non-fiction book was more needed at the time because people didn’t really grasp what had happened. They didn’t know the personalities of most of the chief executives and chairmen running the banks who led Ireland to a precipice. These men weren’t household names until everything went belly up. People used to stop David in the street and ask him where all the money had vanished.
Teaming up with him on the project was fun because David is a happy-go-lucky person. Or, to put it another way, we never once fell out working together and ended up getting married.
In The Hollow Heart, you share a deeply personal story about your desire to have a baby. What was the most challenging part of writing this memoir, and how have readers received it?
I had a compelling reason to share this painful story: the hope my experience might be helpful to people who had fertility treatment and were unsuccessful. We hear happy stories more often than disappointments.
I wanted people considering this journey to understand it is difficult and success is not guaranteed, but there is life on the other side—irrespective of whether it includes children.
As a novelist and a journalist, how do you balance the different demands of fiction and nonfiction writing?
Being a writer isn’t a career but a state of mind. Reading and writing teach me how to navigate the world. The beauty in a story must be underpinned by effort and persistence, but it mustn't show; the story should seem effortless. My career as a journalist feeds into my creative writing.
Your novel, Charlotte, featuring the English novelist Charlotte Brontë, began with your long love of Jane Eyre. Did that novel shape your book in any way?
Yes, there are echoes of Jane Eyre. After all, Charlotte is also about two wives and one husband. I include a scene in which Charlotte’s wedding dress is burned as a nod to Jane’s wedding veil being ripped apart by the first Mrs Rochester, the secret wife kept locked up by her husband. But what shaped my interpretation of the Brontë story most was the realisation of the extent of their Irish connections.
What aspects of Charlotte Brontë’s time in Ireland were the most compelling?
Charlotte is regarded as a jewel in England’s literary firmament, but she had strong Irish links as the daughter of an Irishman, Patrick, who was born Brunty but reinvented himself as Brontë. She went on to marry an Irishman, her father’s curate, Arthur Nicholls, and he brought her to Ireland on their honeymoon. Ireland is part of who she was. Her Irish nature was passionate and unbridled.
Patrick was poor but clever and determined, like Charlotte. He managed to win a place at university in Cambridge, where he gentrified the name to Brontë. That spelling switch distanced him from Ireland, where his brother William was a United Irishman, taking arms against the British empire in the 1798 rebellion, and where his mother, Alice, was a Catholic in a mixed marriage.
The Brunty family in Ireland was both clever and hybrid, which made people understand the outsider’s perspective. Charlotte’s imagination and narrative talents were fired by the stories Patrick told her growing up. He came from a vibrant tradition of oral storytelling. Patrick also gave Charlotte, her sisters and their brother Branwell the run of his library, fostered their education and encouraged them to use their minds.
As children, Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell wrote, illustrated and hand-sewed their own tiny books. The three sisters went on to write novels full of Gothic motifs: ghosts, lonely properties, mysterious figures and brooding landscapes. Their novels have a distinctive seam of rebellion running through them, arguably springing from their Irish heritage.
You were a judge for the 2025 Dublin Literary Award. What was that like?
It’s a huge honour and quite a responsibility, but I love it. I spend my days curled up in an armchair with our cat Chekhov at my feet, reading all 71 books in contention. The calibre of entries is extremely high. Nominations are submitted by libraries worldwide rather than by publishers and publicists, making it an egalitarian prize.
What impresses me most about the award—which has a prize pot of €100,000 shared between author and translator on a 75%-25% split—is that anyone can win. A writer’s name is irrelevant.
Sometimes, the chosen book is already garlanded with awards, like Milkman by Anna Burns; sometimes, it’s an obscure novel, like Marzahn, Mon Amor by Katja Oskamp; and sometimes it’s one that hasn't really made a splash in the English-language world, like Solenoid by Mircea Cartarescu.
As a judge, I’m looking for a story that lingers in my mind after I finish reading and characters that come vividly to life.
