How Delia O'Callaghan's American dream came to end

Delia O’Callaghan spent 15 years building a successful life in the US but one day found herself behind bars. Colette Sheridan hears how she drew from her experience for her new book.

FIRST time author, Delia O’Callaghan, who has just published Honeysuckle to Handcuffs, always wanted to write a book and has been an avid note-taker since her teens, cataloguing her romantic life. The Cork native, who lived in Boston for 15 years as an illegal immigrant, attended creative writing classes in the US city in 2007. She was “dabbling away at a romantic novel for two years”. It was about a young woman working illegally in America but O’Callaghan felt it lacked a strong storyline.

However, when her own life turned into a tumultuous drama, O’Callaghan, from Rochestown, knew she had the material necessary to write a good yarn. Honeysuckle to Handcuffs is her story. It’s an account of O’Callaghan’s romance with a wealthy American. But it is her spell in prison that takes centre stage in this true life story. Last year, O’Callaghan was one of the finalists in the inaugural Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair competition. Her book, while mostly factual, is embellished in places and some identities have been changed.