Beginner’s pluck: Dublin-born writer Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin

'Ordinary Saints' is pretty perfect. It’s informative, original, heartfelt, very real, and stunningly written

Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin studied politics at SOAS before working for a political blog and doing some freelance journalism.

An intense child, Niamh always loved writing.

“I scribbled lines before I could write,” she says, “and at eight, I wrote poems and performed them at my parent’s parties, but I lost confidence in my late teens.”

Graduating in 2011, Niamh moved to London and worked for non-profit organisations, with social justice publications, with charities and unions on media relations, doing story telling for social change.

She then studied politics at SOAS before working for a political blog and doing some freelance journalism.

“Then I worked for the Trades Union Congress and then switched to working freelance.”

I like having a mix of different projects.

All this time Niamh had yearned to write fiction, but there was never time.

“You have to make space. The pandemic focused me.

“I started writing the novel in January 2021 and sold it in the summer of 2023.”

Meanwhile, in 2022, she won the PFD Queer Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize Discoveries Award, (for the first 10,000 words of a novel).

Ordinary Saints was selected for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club.

Who is Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin?

Date/ place of birth: 1989/ Dublin.

Education: Castleknock Community College; Trinity College Dublin, English with Classical Civilisation. SOAS, (School of Oriental and African Studies,) Politics.

Home: Edinburgh, since 2020.

Family: “I have an incredible group of friends, which includes my sisters, Aoife and Dearbhaile.”

The day job: Freelance in non-profit communications.

In another life: “I might have gone into the law and become a barrister.”

Favourite writers: Virginia Woolf; Toni Morrison; Dorris Lessing; John MacGahern; Ruth Ozeki; Torrey Peters.

Second book: “It’s in the early stages.”

Top tip: “I loved the George Saunders quote: ‘Focus on the sentence.’”

Website: www.niamhnimhaoileoin.com

Instagram: @niamhsquared

The debut

Ordinary Saints

Manilla Press, €15.99

Jay has escaped her devout Irish family and lives in London with her girlfriend. 

But when she learns that Ferdia, the brother she adored — a priest who died young after a fatal accident — is being considered as a Catholic Saint, she’s forced to confront her childhood and her family.

Will she come to terms with the past?

The verdict: This debut is pretty perfect. It’s informative, original, heartfelt, very real, and stunningly written. The characters linger in your mind.