Culture That Made Me: Eimear O’Herlihy of West Cork Literary Festival
Eimear O'Herlihy of West Cork Literary Festival in Bantry. Picture: Darragh Kane
Eimear O’Herlihy, 53, grew up on College Road, Cork. She began her career in arts management at the National Sculpture Factory, later taking on roles at the publishing house Mercier Press, the Cork Film Festival and the Everyman theatre. Since 2014, she has been director of the West Cork Literary Festival, which runs in Bantry until July 17. See: westcorkmusic.ie
I started college in UCC in 1990. The writer who stands out from that period was Portuguese writer José Saramago, subsequently a Nobel Prize winner. In his novel , there’s an epidemic of blindness. It was a fantastic read, at a time when we couldn't imagine a mass epidemic. He had another book, , about a fellow working in a city's central registry, recording marriages, deaths, divorces. He went on a quest to track down this anonymous woman whose records he came across. I adored it.
Growing up in Cork, my musical journey started with U2 at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in 1987. I went with a few friends. I was 14-15. Our chaperone, the responsible adult, was 19. It was a big deal to be allowed to go to something like that. Páirc Uí Chaoimh was unrecognisable. I'd never seen 50,000 people in one place in my life. The music was incredible. I'm interested in the collective experience. You can stay at home and listen to music or watch Netflix, but going to the theatre, to a gig, to the cinema is on a completely different level because you're caught up in the atmosphere of what's happening. And U2 are such incredible performers.
Caitríona Lally is a novelist; she won the Rooney Prize a few years ago. Since her time in college, she’s been working as a cleaner in the housekeeping department in Trinity. is her memoir about the economics of being an artist and how she's made more money as a cleaner than she's ever made as a writer. She has to fit her cleaning job in around her role as a partner and mother as well. It’s a book that’s stayed with me.
I love . I love a 30-minute TV comedy. It's fun seeing Cork on screen, spotting familiar places, familiar people. I worked in the Everyman for seven years, so I know a lot of extras and characters in it. I'm as obsessed with the Frank and Walters as everybody is — has become a cork anthem. Jock and Conor, the tall one and the small one, are brilliant characters. It's such a great TV series, such great fun.
I'm of the age where there used to be six cinemas in Cork. The first movie I saw at one was in the Capitol on Grand Parade. My father took myself and my older brother. I was four. I was terrified. I don't think there was any consideration given to the content. It was the film that was on at the time when my mother sent us all out of the house. I can't say I saw it. I spent the whole thing sitting on the floor and when Princess Leia came on screen, my father tapped me; I'd get up and watch her bit and then I'd go back down to the floor. I’ve always had a soft spot for the franchise.
I was obsessed with . I couldn't get it into me fast enough. It piqued so many of my interests — my lifetime obsession with New York; the history of advertising; the glamour; the number of martinis they consumed at a business lunch; somebody turning up with a big rotary phone when there'd be a phone call for somebody; the role of women in it — how the characters Peggy and Joan were portrayed, but also how they were so much stronger and smarter than they were given credit for; how they were seen as “the secretaries”, but often they were the brains behind the organisation. And it was so beautifully shot, the attention to detail was all so perfect.
Aged 12, my dad took my primary school class to in the Everyman for my birthday party. The timing at the cinema suited him rather than the movie. My friends complained that it was a boy's movie, and they didn't know why we were going. Back then, going to the cinema, you didn't know anything about the movie in advance. There were no trailers. The movie was on, and you went. An hour and a half later, I was the most popular girl in school because they’d been taken to the coolest movie ever.
Brendan Canty’s film is about two estranged brothers. It’s set in Knocknaheeny in Cork. I'm very interested in the arts set in Cork, and seeing social realism set in Cork is appealing. Brendan is from West Cork. Seeing such a great response to a Cork film has been really exciting.
Growing up in Cork, Corcadorca Theatre Company was life-changing. For many people, plays are something you associate with school, Shakespeare is for exams, trying to figure out what he was talking about. Corcadorca brought Shakespeare to life — seeing performed at the Old Distillery on the North Mall; or in Fitzgerald's Park. We were so incredibly lucky to have Corcadorca in Cork for so long, doing contemporary work as well, pushing the boundaries, staging site-specific works, getting inside places you wouldn't have been able to go to otherwise, like Spike Island.
The director John O'Brien has such amazing vision. He did a huge-scale production of Leoncavallo's opera at The Everyman in 2012. It had the most incredible set — it took over the theatre, almost coming out into the seats. In addition to the opera singers, he also had the orchestra musicians in costume, and they were moving around on stage throughout the whole auditorium. For many people, it was their first experience of opera. It was so vibrant and not at all stuffy, the way opera is perceived. I love anything that makes people feel that some artform that isn't for them actually is.
is my favourite podcast. Obviously, the story is familiar to Cork people. I went to Schull on holidays as a child; I actually went to Schull for New Year's Eve with a group of friends the week after Sophie Toscan du Plantier was murdered. Not once did it cross our minds that potentially there was a killer at large. We had a lovely time. We didn’t think we should be home before dark or locking the doors. We were all so innocent. The case was something I followed over the years. When the podcast came out, it was amazing. I'm not sure any podcast has topped it.
Wherever Hothouse Flowers played in the late ’80s — the Opera House, the Pav, Connolly Hall — me and my friends were there. There was nearly a cease and desist taken out against us. Fashion-wise, I wore a selection of multi-coloured Converse and Dr. Martens boots; jeans ripped across the knee; a big man’s jacket; and our grandfathers’ wardrobes were emptied, to our mothers’ despair — the silky pyjamas that granddad would wear going into hospital, everybody was wearing.
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