Diary of a Sesh Hound is a story that has lived rent free in my head since my own days in college in University of Limerick – a long time ago now! I’ve been a huge reader all my life and being a Limerick woman myself, I didn’t need to travel far when I went on to study English Literature at UL. Reading has always been my greatest passion but I never imagined myself as the writer, as the person that could construct this fictional world for readers to get lost in, an imposter syndrome I feel like most women in our twenties experience. At least the millennial generation anyway!
I love almost every genre but I’ve always been a die-hard Marian Keyes fan. I was fifteen the first time I read Rachel’s holiday and it was like peering through a window of these relatable characters’ lives. But chasing down the high that Marian’s books gave me was like a perpetually disappointing plight. As her work matured, there wasn’t really anything that as a 20-30 year old that I could read the character and go – that’s me. Or that happened to me. And it left me feeling like there was a gaping hole of what I wanted to see for that genre.
Sesh Hound
I moved to Sydney back in 2012 and built my career in digital marketing, but when Covid hit and I found myself locked in my apartment day after day, I decided I was going to start writing the Sesh Hound story. A story about Roisin Tierney, a college girl in her twenties having the time of her life with her best friends – and every dramatic plot twist life throws at her along the way. Unfortunately I wasn’t as confident as I pretended to be – I got 10,000 words in when I read it back.
I remember actually blushing that I’d even thought I could be a writer, I decided it was terrible – and deleted the whole thing. Reassuring myself that I’d given it a go and it clearly wasn’t for me. Looking back, I feel so sad for that younger me, that lack of confidence and crippling anxiety. Even when I published – I used my married name I was that paranoid so certainly still some maturing to do on my part!
Roisin’s Story
It was only four years later when I was pregnant with my second baby that the urge to tell Roisin’s story started to grip me again. I’d lay awake when I was too uncomfortable to sleep and would end up writing entire scenes in my head at 2am. I knew then that I couldn’t forget Roisin. Hers was a story I wanted to tell because it was a story any Irish Millennial woman would read and be able to instantly relate to – because it was a story they’d lived too.
A group of girl friends in your twenties that are your soul mates, the first love that broke your heart, grief hitting you like a train when you least expect it. As a reader – I wanted to write a story that I would read. Characters that I could relate to and understand. And just as I finished up my maternity leave I finally started writing – and I just couldn’t stop.
And that’s what I wanted to create in my story. Flawed and hilarious characters that you wanted to follow their journey and find out what comes next.
Living in Sydney
I think living in Sydney for the past fourteen years always means I look at home differently than someone who never left. I romanticise it when I write it because while I’ve lived it – I also miss it. Everyday. Creating those eccentric characters that anyone can recognise in their own localities, writing in our own slang so it’s authentic to how we really speak when we’re together instead of a perfectly polished version. Sitting in a cafe in Sydney and writing about home meant that for a few hours everyday while 18,000 km away – I got to be at home.
The response to Diary of a Sesh Hound has been incredible, and seeing the reviews describing it as a love letter to female friendships, transporting readers back to their college days and a raw and honest portrayal of grief make me well up with pride. Because that’s what it was all about. Creating a story that someone could read and understand every funny, outrageous and heartbreaking moment as something they’d lived themselves.
Sometimes I think you need to step back to see the larger picture – and living in Sydney for so long has meant I can appreciate how special we are as a culture, our warmth and our utter hilarity, in a way I’m not sure I would have if I’d never left. It’s what makes writing the Sesh Hound series so fun and what made me so sure only halfway through Diary of a Sesh Hound that there was so much more to Roisin’s story.
The sequel, Sesh Hound On Tour, is coming the 20th of November and I cannot wait for everyone to see where Roisin’s journey takes her next!
(c) Claire O’M Barry
About Diary of a Sesh Hound:
Diary of a Sesh Hound is a sharp, laugh-out-loud romantic comedy set against the chaotic backdrop of Irish university life. Perfect for fans of Marian Keyes, Sophie Kinsella, and the Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling series, it’s a story about love, heartbreak, grief, and the friendships that survive it all.
Roisin Tierney has a gift: she can sniff out a party anywhere.
Among her friends she’s known as the Sesh Hound, the girl who treats every night out like an adventure and every hangover like a badge of honour. Men? Usually just part of the fun — easily forgotten by morning.
Until Connor Donnelly walks back into her life.
Connor was Roisin’s first everything: first crush, first love… and first heartbreak. His sudden return threatens to unravel the walls she’s spent four years carefully building around her heart.
Then Roisin meets Ronan – charming, confident, and impossible to ignore.
There’s just one problem.
Ronan is her new substitute professor.
Caught between the boy who broke her heart and the man she definitely shouldn’t want, Roisin must navigate messy friendships, family grief, and the biggest question of all:
Is it safer to keep running from love… or finally risk everything for it?
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