Beginner’s Pluck: Molly Hennigan's obsession with the act of writing
Author Molly Hennigan. Pic: Rónán McCall
A quiet child, Molly was obsessed with the act of writing.
“On my 8th birthday, I got a diary. I had nothing to say, but I filled the page with words, like happy, happy, happy.”
As a teenager, Molly visited her grandmother, Phil, in various psychiatric hospitals, and she started to notice that the way members of authority spoke about her, conflicted to with what Molly knew of her, and what Phil told her.
“The versions of her were at odds, and that confused me,” she says. “I started to pay close attention, and to write about my visits to her.” She also wrote reams of poems.
Between her primary degree and MA, Molly worked in the National Concert Hall, and after her MA, she became a duty manager there.
“I was there for seven years altogether,” she says. “There were 40 staff members under me.”
She was teasing out the idea of writing essays exploring her family trauma — tracing her great-grandmother’s experience of Grangegorman Mental Hospital, when, in 2019, she attended the Stinging Fly Summer School taught by Arnold Thomas Fanning.
“He encouraged me to write about my feelings on the topic rather than to hide behind references.”
1994/Dublin, but grew up Celbridge, Co Kildare.
St Wolstans Community School, Celbridge; Maynooth University, English with geography; Trinity College Dublin, M Phil in Creative Writing. “At the moment I’m taking a PhD in English in Massachusetts, on the topic of incarceration in Ireland.”
between Inisheer, and Massachusetts.
Boyfriend, Rónán, and rescue dog, Harry.
Studying and writing.
“I always wanted to be a dentist or a post woman.”
Maeve Brennan; Mary Gaitskill; Claire Keegan; Dean Fee; John Cheever; Colin Barrett.
“It’s a novel. I have a draft.”
Top tip: “Write when you’re experiencing grief, loss, joy, or a hangover to give a thread to your feelings.”
@Mollyhennigan
- The Celestial Realm
- €16.99/ Kindle, €8.17
Examining incarceration, Molly writes about the gaps and intimacies in the relationship with her grandmother, and what it means to be an unconventional woman in a conformist society.
A luminously written account filled with wisdom and searing love.
