It was probably the easiest book I've written in my shortish career. And Saoirse's voice and what Saoirse witnesses was all very clear to me and came very easily. It sounds a bit silly, but it was almost a magical process because I wrote the novel very quickly. I didn't say to myself, OK, you know, the men here will be peripheral and attendant, and the women will take center stage. And it worked out to be a novel that centers women but not quite by design. Saoirse is the daughter of Eileen Aylward, who is pretty much the titular queen of Dirt Island, who's based loosely but quite faithfully, in a way, on my own mother. Who is she? And just give us a glimpse of how she comes to be the fulcrum around which this family pivots. KELLY: I want you to begin where the book begins - with the birth of Saoirse, who becomes the narrator. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.ĭONAL RYAN: Thank you, Mary Louise.

Well, Donal Ryan joins me now from Limerick, Ireland. We glimpse their commitment to one another. We glimpse their struggles, their knock-the-walls down fights both with outsiders and amongst themselves. Beginning in 1982, the novel chronicles the lives of these four women in County Tipperary, Ireland - Mary, Eileen, Saoirse and Pearl. Rather, it's about the love that for generations of women in the Aylward family feel for one another. Now, I do not mean in the traditional romantic sense. Donal Ryan's novel 'The Queen Of Dirt Island' is a love story.

The queen of dirt