Page 60
ALUMNI | Interview
From Fact to Fiction
War correspondent turned author Ed O’Loughlin B.A. (1988) talks to Shauna O'Halloran about his Trinity years, and the success of his debut novel.
I met author Ed O’Loughlin, at his suggestion, at the gates of Trinity College. It is the time-honoured fashion for Trinity students, according to him, so what better way to begin our interview about the time that he spent here during the 1980s.
“We’ll see if the coffee has improved here over the last 15 years,” he says with a smile as we sit down in The Buttery to talk about his student years and his recent Man Booker nomination.
“I was here from 1984 to 1988 and studied English Literature and French,” he informs me, which would actually put his last visit to The Buttery more like 21 years ago. “I had a great time here. It was a great four years. Studying arts is a very relaxed way to transit from school into juvenile adulthood, and Trinity was a very pleasant place to while away four years. You have to work a bit to get through it, but you don’t have to work too hard. And I enjoyed that because I am quite lazy.”
It seems unlikely that O’Loughlin is truly as lazy as he makes out. After Trinity, he went on to study a post-graduate journalism course becoming, at the age of 27, The Irish Times’ youngest ever foreign correspondent with a post in South Africa. He went on to spend eight years in Africa, a further fi ve in Israel and his recently published book Not Untrue and Not Unkind made the long list for the Man Booker Prize in September this year.
“I hadn’t thought of any other career options and I had been heavily involved with Trinity News when I was here,” he says, although he knew that he wanted to write in some capacity. “I fell into journalism because it was the only thing I could think of. Although, as it turns out, falling into it wasn’t really that easy either.” But fall into it he did, and O’Loughlin soon found himself reporting from Africa during the end of apartheid.
“To go from being a general reporter in a Dublin newsroom at a time of mere stagnation – this is before the boom – to suddenly fi nd yourself as a correspondent working in Africa was mindblowing,” explains O’Loughlin. “A change of pace, a change of scenery, a change of job. And Africa – anyone who has been there will know – is fantastic. It can be very gruelling and diffi cult, and sometimes very disturbing, but it all manages to come out as sort of magic and fascinating. I loved it.”
After eight years in Africa, O’Loughlin spent five and a half years in the city of Jerusalem. “The Middle East was a lot more challenging. In Africa, if you are a foreigner and you have a credit card, you are a big shot. You don’t have to be rich or important, you can travel vast distances without anyone bothering you for anything. But the Middle East is very clamped down, controlled and tight. People are watching what you do, watching what you write. It is very, very tense.”
Despite this, and the fact that he arrived in Jerusalem while the suicide bombing attacks were still rife, O’Loughlin describes his experience there as relaxing and safe compared to the crimeriddled and dangerous Johannesburg.
"You were not really at risk in most places in Jerusalem. You were not at risk in your own home or a quiet back street. It was perfectly safe. There was virtually no crime at all. You know it’s time to move on when the threat of a suicide bomb attack is not enough to get the adrenaline going anymore,” and O’Loughlin admits that he had become a bit weary of the excitement of his former job. “It (Continued on page 61...)
(Cover of Not Untrue & Not Unkind)
58 | Trinity Today
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84