I always dread the ‘where do you get your ideas from’ question that all authors are asked because the truth is I’m never entirely sure. Themes and characters niggle at the back of my brain until one day the right story for the right person comes along and I start to write it. I’m not a plotter, so I’m never really sure what direction it will take, and I rarely know how a novel is going to end until I’m three quarters of the way through.
But the process was very different for The Woman on the Bridge which was a project born during lockdown, although not a lockdown project. Usually when I’m writing a book I go for a walk every day to let the characters settle in my mind. Seeing people out and about, in cafés or supermarkets or public transport always sparks internal questions of what their stories might be. During the pandemic days the opportunity to observe people was severely curtailed and I knew that their current stories were very much the same as my own. Take some exercise, go home, obey the rules. As I walked around my neighbourhood, definitely not stopping in cafes or supermarkets or taking a bus or train anywhere, I found myself thinking about the past as a way of dealing with the present. More and more, my mind turned to my late grandmother and the stories she’d told me as a child.
I didn’t always listen as carefully as perhaps I should back then, nor did I always know the people she talked about, but during my walks those fragments of memory came back to me and when I got home I began to write them down as notes. I was struck by how some of my grandmother’s actions whenever I stayed with her mirrored what I was doing now – her caution towards people she didn’t know, her meticulous cleaning and disinfecting of her home and her concern about the health of her family. These things for her were a product of the turbulent times she lived in, as well as her experiences both of the Spanish flu epidemic and more specifically the tuberculosis that rampaged through the crowded tenement buildings in Dublin city.
I also began to look at the photographs of the autograph book my grandfather had kept when he was interred during the Civil War. I’d often looked at it as a child and was fascinated by the entries and the drawings although I had no real context in which to place them. Now with the notes I’d made from the remembered stories as well as old family papers, I had a better picture of my grandmother’s life and how meeting my grandfather had changed everything for her.
I still hadn’t made a decision to write a book, but I knew I wanted to put the stories together. As I began to write and became immersed in the unique dilemmas that faced the men and women I was writing about, the novel took shape.
The Woman on the Bridge is set during the years of the Irish War of Independence and the Civil War. There are many books dealing with the factual history of the time and concentrating on the main players, their motivations and decisions. But I wanted to write (as I always do) about ordinary people who were impacted by events outside their control, and how women in particular had to live with decisions that are taken by others. I also wanted to write about the inner strength that they find to take actions that they would never imagined themselves capable of taking.
Most of all, though, I wanted to bring Winifred’s spirit and vitality to the page. Even though she is constantly concerned about the major events taking place around her, and the risks she begins to run as she gets drawn into the fight for freedom, day-to-day life is important to her. She loves her job in a drapery shop and gossiping with her friends. She loves walking along Grafton Street and sitting in St Stephen’s Green. She also loves having sticky buns in Bewley’s, and tea at the Gresham Hotel. She has hopes and dreams both for herself and for her country, and she’s not afraid of expressing them.
My grandmother was never afraid of expressing herself. She was a strong character, who took no nonsense from anyone and who was fiercely protective of her family. She raised her daughters to be strong women too — a trait that I think they passed on to their granddaughters. She also encouraged us to read as widely as possible.
I think it’s very fitting that someone who allowed me to spend hours re-arranging the books in her bookcase has ended up in the pages of a book herself. She used to laugh at me as I carefully placed them in alphabetical order and would often tell me that maybe one day I’d write a book.
I hope she’d be proud that I’ve written more than one, and I really hope she’d be proud of The Woman on the Bridge and how I’ve interpreted her story.
(c) Sheila O’Flanagan
www.sheilaoflanagan.com
Twitter @sheilaoflanagan
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About The Woman on the Bridge:
Dublin. The 1920s. As war tears Ireland apart, two young people are caught up in events that will bring love, tragedy – and the hardest of choices.
In a country fighting for freedom, it’s hard to live a normal life. Winnie O’Leary supports the cause, but she doesn’t go looking for trouble. Then rebel Joseph Burke steps into her workplace. Winnie is furious with him about a broken window. She’s not interested in romance. But love comes when you least expect it.
Joseph’s family shelter fugitives and smuggle weapons. Joseph would never ask Winnie to join the fight; but his mother and sisters demand commitment. Will Winnie choose Joseph, and put her own loved ones in deadly danger? Or wait for a time of peace that may never come?
Ireland’s tumultuous independence struggle is the backdrop for an unforgettable story of courage and heartbreak, in which heroes are made of ordinary people. Inspired by the story of Sheila O’Flanagan’s grandmother, The Woman on the Bridge is the unmissable, compulsive new novel from a bestselling author.
Order your copy online here.
