1916: A Novel of the Irish Rebellion

Interviews & Essays

On Sunday, April 5th, barnesandnoble.com welcomed Morgan Llywelyn to discuss 1916.

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Moderator: Welcome to the barnesandnoble.com live author Auditorium. Today Morgan Llywelyn, author of 1916, joins us for a live online chat. Good afternoon, Morgan Llywelyn! Welcome to our Auditorium. Do you have any opening comments for your readers?

Morgan Llywelyn: Yes, I do. I think the most important thing about this book, considering what is on the news these days, is the fact that it details the birth of the Irish Republican Army.

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Henry from St. Petersburg, FL: I am only vaguely familiar with the events of 1916, and I am very interested to read your book. Could you tell us what events it deals with?

Morgan Llywelyn: The novel sets up the four years surrounding the Easter Rising, which would ultimately win Ireland's independence from England, and in the novel, I show how the diverse strands in both America and Ireland came together to effect this. The American organization known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood actually funded most of the Easter Rising, while in Ireland, a group of idealists, poets, and professors combined with the labor union movement to create the actual event. Simultaneously, through this history, I have run the fiction lives of a group of ordinary people whom the events impacted.

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Harold from Oakland, CA: Your book describes the IRA at the time of the Easter Rising. Could you talk about how the ideologies of the IRA at that time differ from the images we have of them today in light of the Troubles in Northern Ireland? Do you think they are truly different organizations, or do we just have a different perception of them in modern times?

Morgan Llywelyn: I think the initial ideology -- that of chivalry, gallantry, decency, the protection of innocent life -- was a very noble one and one to which the IRA aspired for a long time; but the events following the partition of Ireland in 1922 resulted in mounting frustration among paramilitary organizations on both sides of the new border, created by partition. This resulted in mounting tensions, which began to change the actions of the IRA, if not their basic Republican ideal. Then, the last 30 years, since Bloody Sunday in Derry, has seen a shocking escalation of violence again by the paramilitaries on both sides, not just the IRA. This violence, I feel, feeds itself. It becomes a defining characteristic, which makes people forget about ideals in the rush to action. Therein lie the dangers. For the fringe elements, war is fun. Killing is a deadly game that a small percentage on both sides enjoy. So an evolution has taken place that has given the IRA as a whole a dreadful image, which actually should only apply to a part.

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Michael from Bennington, VT: I can imagine that this subject is a sensitive one to write about, given that people in Ireland and Northern Ireland still have strong feelings, and in many ways their relationship to one another is still unresolved. What considerations did you take in writing this book to be sensitive to differing views and opinions?

Morgan Llywelyn: This, because it is a novel, has the advantage of allowing me to introduce fictional characters who will represent a wide variety of opinions. While the story is centered on the Republican movement and Ireland's struggle for independence, I also have my fictional characters demonstrate varying degrees of ambivalence toward what was happening. A fictional civil servant named Neville Grantham, for example, represents the point of view of British members of the government in Ireland who understood the reasons behind the rising while at the same time maintained a loyalty to Britain. A book like this one only serves a worthwhile purpose if it allows people to see the other person's point of view, and I have tried to do that insofar as I could, while telling the Republican story.

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Ursula P. from Athens, GA: I read that you live in Ireland and have become an Irish citizen. Where are you originally from? If you are not originally from Ireland, how has an outsider's perspective influenced your writing of 1916?

Morgan Llywelyn: Good question! I was born in New York City of Irish parents, so I was always entitled to Irish citizenship. I moved back to Ireland in 1985 but have always had that added dimension of the American experience from which to look at Ireland. I think it helps. I think when you are totally immersed in a culture, it can be easy to forget the larger picture. Many people writing about Ireland, such as James Joyce, have done their best writing from abroad. I would not dream of comparing myself to Joyce, but I appreciate the opportunities I have as someone who has been a citizen of both worlds.

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Benjamin A. from Bronx, NY: How did you decide on the characters you would use to tackle such a huge subject? I haven't read your book yet, but do you use real figures from history to describe the events in 1916, or do you create fictional characters? What are the benefits/drawbacks of using fictional versus historical characters?

Morgan Llywelyn: At the front of the book, I have a list of all the characters, first the fictional ones, and then all the historic ones. I wrote this book first as if I were writing a nonfiction history, relating the events and the people who made them in detail. Then I created fictional characters to weave through the history and represent ordinary people from different walks of life in Ireland in the period from 1912 to 1916. Each of the fictional characters represents something different. Male and female, they give a broad spectrum of the Irish society of the time and allow us to see the historic characters through their eyes. Dealing with this particular subject, I believe this is a good way of handling the material, in that I can tell the story of the historic characters without putting my own words and feelings into them. My viewpoint comes only through the fictional characters, leaving the historic ones to express their own viewpoints as they actually did.

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Elke from Pittsburgh, PA: Did you learn anything in your research for 1916 that turned out to be different from commonly held attitudes or opinions about the events today?

Morgan Llywelyn: Absolutely! Because of the Troubles in the North, since Bloody Sunday, historical revisionism has taken place. Many of the younger people in Ireland today have grown up with an impression fostered by that revisionism. They have been encouraged to think of the leaders of the Easter Rising as bloodthirsty fools rather than as the great men and women they really were. This perception is certainly not universal in Ireland, but it does affect a percentage of the population and has been encouraged for political reasons, thus tying the Irish Republican Army to savage roots that it does not have.

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George from Boynton Beach, FL: What sort of research did you do to write 1916? Did this differ from the research you've done for your other novels?

Morgan Llywelyn: I have been working on the research for 1916 for the last ten or eleven years, which meant doing a tremendous amount of reading and collecting of archival material. I have footnoted the book extensively so that readers can backtrack my research if they like. There is a very large bibliography included, and I was also fortunate enough to be given access to a number of private family papers, journals, letters, etc., that have not been published and may never be published. This very large volume of material helped me to understand what happened in 1916 as if I were really there rather than merely looking back upon it. Seen from inside, the events are very different than they would be if we were only looking back across 80 years.

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Marion from Dayton, Ohio: How has your book been received in Ireland?

Morgan Llywelyn: So far, it is not yet in Ireland; it is just coming in now. It won't be officially published in Ireland until Easter week. I expect it to be controversial. I hope it will also be both informative and entertaining, but I am confident enough of the research that I don't really worry about its reception. People will like it or hate it, but I hope they'll read it with an open mind and stop for a minute to think about the men and women who won them their freedom.

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Douglas Orman from Rochester, NY: Did your view of the events in 1916 change by the time you had finished the novel? In what way? How did you initially envision them, and how do you see them now?

Morgan Llywelyn: My view changed a lot. I had started the research from the common perception that we have in Ireland today. The research itself reeducated me, and I think that is what research should do. If you just find out things that support your initial concept, you haven't learned very much. By the time I had finished working on 1916, I realized just how much we lost with the execution of men like Patrick Pearse. Had he and James Connely lived, there might never have been partition. Ireland would be prosperous today anyway, but she might have a lot fewer scars.

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Patricia from Cleveland, OH: What do you think lies behind the continuing violence in Northern Ireland?

Morgan Llywelyn: Firstly, let me say, it is not religious. The terms "Catholic" and "Protestant" are labels pasted on to justify greed, political expediency, a desire to retain privilege, a desire to retain status, and to some degree, a sheer joy in violence. The worst elements in human nature are always those which fuel this kind of conflict, and that is what makes it so hard to bring to an end.

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Erin Fitzpatrick from Trenton, NJ: Looking at your backlist, it would appear that you don't usually write about history in the 20th century. How does it compare with, say, a history of the Celts in Ireland or writing about mythology? Can we expect more relatively modern historical novels from you in the future? Thanks, Erin.

Morgan Llywelyn: Yes, you can! I will be following 1916 with two more: 1921: THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE and 1949: THE IRISH REPUBLIC. Comparing it with writing about ancient Ireland, I feel like I have always been working my way toward this, trying to understand the forces that shaped us and made us the people we are today. In Ireland, at least, you have to understand the ancient past in order to have any understanding of modern history, so they do all connect.

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Tom from Little Rock, Arkansas: What would Ireland be like today if the Easter Rising had never happened? Do you think some other event would have taken its place and everything would be the same as it is now, or do you think things would be drastically different if things had gone differently on that day?

Morgan Llywelyn: If the Easter Rising had never happened, Ireland today might be in the same position as Scotland: still part of the British Empire, still trying to establish a degree of autonomy within that empire, and therefore we would not have the remarkable prosperity we have achieved as a republic. Ireland in the last few years has been changed, changed utterly, into a Celtic tiger, and that could only have happened with independence. Some other event in the years leading up to the present day might have effected a drastic change in Ireland, but I cannot imagine one which would have been as profound as that resulting from the Rising and the War for Independence.

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Elise from NYC: Did you see the film "Michael Collins"? What did you think of it? How does your account of the events differ from that portrayed in the film?

Morgan Llywelyn: I did see the film. I thought it was very good indeed. Ireland being Ireland, of course, Neil Jordan was criticized for what were seen as historical inaccuracies, but overall his interpretation of events and characters was quite good. My novel, 1916, covers the period preceding that of the film, however, and Michael Collins, in actuality, only played a minor role in the Easter Rising itself. His time was to come with the War for Independence. My major criticism of the film is that it did not tell enough about the historical context to enable people to understand what was going on, unless they already knew some Irish history. Something as important as the treaty was not even shown.

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JWilliam from Evanston, IL: Do you expect that the second inquiry into Bloody Sunday will bring any closure, or is it expected to be yet another cover-up?

Morgan Llywelyn: I think the inquiry is necessary. It may not bring closure, because the wounds are so deep and the pain, in many ways, is still fresh, but anything that sets the record straight enables people to move forward. It is only misremembering that makes the past dangerous.

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Moderator: Thank you, Morgan Llywelyn, for this interesting discussion of Ireland and your book 1916. Do you have any closing comments?

Morgan Llywelyn: I do! I want to thank all the people who asked such thought-provoking questions. They have reminded me why I wrote this book in the first place!

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