Gareth Hanrahan: Cork author inspired by daughter for latest fantasy novel
Cork author Gareth Hanrahan.
Early in the process of writing his charming latest novel, Cork fantasy author Gareth Hanrahan was surprised to discover he was really telling the story of his seven-year-old daughter.
“The book is heavily based on our daughter, Nimue in a way. Who’s autistic, nonverbal - she was the model for the art as well as the character, to some degree,” he says, referring to the book’s beautiful illustrations by his partner, Edel Ryder-Hanrahan. “When Nim was a bit younger she was climbing and jumping everywhere. I was thinking - if she had a dungeon she’d be thriving. That’s where a lot of it came from.”
Hanrahan, who is based in Turner’s Cross in Cork city, is one of Ireland’s most prominent fantasy authors, as well as a respected writer of gamebooks for fantasy role-playing games such as . He has, through his career, delved into both Game of Thrones-style “dark” fantasy as well as heroic escapades in the tradition of JRR Tolkien.
But his latest novel, is a departure; it’s a love letter both to Kipling’s classic coming-of-age tale, and also to his daughter - though he was not consciously aware of the second fact when he started writing.
Only in hindsight did he realise Nimue was the inspiration for his plucky young heroine, Bait. The story opens with her as a baby, freshly abducted by a dragon, and then raised in an underground maze - the titular dungeon, which is populated by goblins, gargoyles and other stereotypical fantasy monsters. These are gradually revealed to be her “found family” who bring her up as one of their own.
“When I was writing it, I was sort of borrowing some of Nimue’s mannerisms and approach to the world. Parts of it did surprise me. I started to write it when she would have been five. She’s seven now. The book goes from Bait being a two-year-old to a 12, 13-year-old. It was drawing on both her and her older brothers (in their early teens) and imagining how things would work out - extrapolating. It’s not a direct one-to-one.”
Hanrahan is part of an emerging generation of Irish fantasy writers that also includes Shauna Lawless and Ryan Cahill (whose cheerleaders include giant of the genre Brandon Sanderson). Yet, for all of these achievements, fantasy is still regarded with disdain and bafflement by the Irish literature scene - a snobbery born out of insecurity which does not exist in less self- conscious countries such as the UK and the United States.
Fantasy, in Hanrahan’s experience, is seen as something not to be taken entirely seriously. The paradox is that so much of heroic fantasy has Irish roots. Tolkien’s elves are today widely accepted to have been inspired by the Tuatha Dé Danann from Irish mythology, while franchises such as and series draw freely from Irish folklore and even plunder the Irish language.
We’re at the heart of fantasy - even if not everybody recognises this. “I’ve applied for a couple of literary grants,” says Hanrahan. “I’m not super plugged into the whole Irish literary scene. I do get the impression that fantasy is still seen as a sort of silly and trivial branch of things - compared to ‘proper’ literature.
“Which is ironic as one of the things I’m vaguely planning is a Cú Chulainn thing for one of my next projects. And the whole Irish myth is one of the roots of fantasy. Ireland is weird. We’re very good for the arts on multiple levels… But there isn’t any sort of support for different genres. Possibly it’s just population size. We don’t have the numbers for big events. I’m going over to England in a few weeks to do events at bookstores. Big bookstores there can muster enough fantasy fans to do big fantasy-based events.”
But if Ireland is still in the dark ages when it comes to genre fiction, globally fantasy is thriving— as can be seen with the success of Romantasy and the LitRPG scene, as exemplified by the bestselling series. Tabletop gaming is also undergoing a boom and, here too, Hanrahan is right at the frontlines. Alongside his latest novel, he has also been working on the Merryshire Detective Club — a cosy fantasy adventure game in which hobbit-like creatures in a bucolic village solve Agatha Christie-style mysteries and which has already met its crowdfunding goal (tagline: “In a hole in the ground..they found a body”).
He feels that the influence of tabletop gaming is everywhere - and has even become part of how we speak. Phrases such as “larping” - which comes from “live action roleplay” - and the concept of “levelling up” all go back to role-playing games, of which is merely the best-known example.
“We were going around to all the schools last year because [Hanrahan’s sons] are going into secondary now. And all the schools were going, ‘oh we have debating, we have GAA, we have D&D’. And we’re going: ‘this is being advertised?’. Back in my day it was a shameless secret - as opposed to the principal proudly proclaiming it.”
- is published August 11. Garath Hanrahan is holding a signing at Waterstone’s Cork, Saturday, August 22 at 2pm. You can contribute to the Merryshire Detective Club crowdfunding project here
