Annie Dunne

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I am thinking about nothing, slipping from one idle thing to the next as one does beside a fire” (10). There is not much between the characters of Billy Kerr and Billy the pony" (p. 33), thinks Annie, and yet although we see Billy through Annie's eyes as a foolish lout, the events of the story suggest another side to him. How do Billy's actions—both kind and cruel—contrast with Annie's description of them? Sebastian Barry’s overriding concern is with recovering those parts of Irish history that have been forgotten or displaced by official, particularly nationalist, histories. True, I never read those books, but lapped such knowledge from my father’s garrulous knees!” (136).

Annie Dunne was left with a lump high on her spine after a childhood bout with polio. Her mother died young and her father did his best to look after his daughters. He was in charge of all the police forces in Dublin and they lived in Dublin Castle, along with other members of the police force. Annie Dunne took great pride in this, even though her father’s mental health failed after 40 years of promotions at his work.

How did you find the inspiration for the character of Annie Dunne? As a male writer did you find it challenging to "create" her? And as a male reader, who are some of your favorite female protagonists? Her floury hands go to her thighs and she rest them there, imprinting the soft map of her palms” (67). In the movies, Annies are always: cute/pretty/beautiful; perky/down-to-earth; inquisitive to intelligent/well-read; loyal/wholesome; a perfect woman for a good man.

A day of hardship is a long day, good times shorten the day, and yet a life in itself is but the breadth of a farthing” (10). Superb…Annie emerges from the novel as one o fthe most memorable women in Irish fiction.”— San Francisco Chronicle God is the architect, and I am content there, sleepless and growing old, to be friend to His fashioned things, and a shadow among shadows."

More from The Author

Barry’s preoccupation with the lost stories of Catholic loyalism in Ireland has proved irksome to some nationalist critics, and he has been seen by some as a historical revisionist operating through the medium of fiction. Though his work varies in form between novel, short story, drama and poetry, a device common to most of the texts is the weaving together of separate narrative strands and voices. This method of composition questions commonly accepted accounts of historical episodes and locates his work on the intersections between family and national histories, and fact and fiction. The frequent reappearance of minor characters from previous works as main characters in new works (and vice versa), offers further suggestion that Barry’s writings constitute an ongoing, open-ended project, the creation of a polyphonous alternative history of Ireland through the excavation and reworking of fragments from family history. The personification of Ireland of course is an old tradition, and indeed the old woman, or "the hag" as the term went, often stood for Ireland in poetry, even as late as Yeats. But I don't think I was after such a thing. Ireland as a landscape and a character...that's an interesting notion. I don't really know the answer. Sometimes, either in accusation or praise, it is said that I write poetically, but the truth seems to me to be that I listen for how the characters speak and try to be faithful to that, wherever it leads. Robert Frost said that dangerous thing: that he looked after the sound and let the sense look after itself. I suppose as a child I could make no distinction between inert matter and things with a beating heart and have held on to that ignorance. After all it is the apprehension of a person of their surroundings that makes up the material, the banner and the inner pictures of a life. Annie lives in a rich world, in the sense that it has daily sights to see that she approves. Such I suppose is the wealth of people that have few coins, the coinage of things as they are, as they show themselves, like those small animals that are familiar to country people but are like revelations, revenants and miracles to city people, or used to be.