What better way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day?!

Gabriel Byrne talked with Des Lally at the Clifden Arts Festival in Ireland back in September, 2021.

It was a great interview! They shared the video of it, so I’m sure you have already enjoyed listening and watching Gabriel talk about his book and answer the well-thought-out questions Mr. Lally presented to him.

However, a transcript of an interview like this is always a good thing to have and now you have it! You can read along with the video if you like. You can also run this text through your favorite translator, in case a version in another language would be useful for you.

One of my favorite parts:

But to try to create essentially the world–the sights, the sounds, the smells of that world–that was very important to me. And I think that’s probably the most important thing to me, to try and make that world as believable and as real as possible, and only using words that would illuminate that. I originally wrote it–believe it or not, Des–I originally wrote the whole thing in verse. And my editor said: You’ll sell two copies, one for yourself and then one to keep to give as a Christmas present. So I went back and I read it. But what remained from that exercise was the rhythm of the sentences. And so exactly what you said. I knew that I had a story, but it wasn’t like the most amazing, amazing story of all time. What was going to keep it afloat was the language and the writing. Otherwise there was no point in doing it. And so I was nervous about putting it out there because, you know, I revere great writing and I revere writers more than I do actors, to be honest. I think that what I set out to do was not what I achieved. I know that sounds daft, but you can have an idea that you want to do something and you’re totally convinced this is it. And then it turns out to be something completely different. But I found that a lot in life.

Many thanks to Sean Mulkerrin, Operations at Clifden Community Arts Festival, who shared the original subtitle file with me. Without it, I would never have completed this project!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you and may all of your luck be the good kind! mrgreen

One Comment

  1. DORA BARALIA

    STELLA … EVER GRATEFUL FOR ALL THE NEWS. SOMETIMES ANSWERING SO LATE BECAUSE OF MY WORK. SO HARD THESE DAYS. BUT I AM EVER PRESENT IN THESE PAGE. WONDERFUL THE WORDS OF OUR DEAR GABRIEL, WONDERFUL HIS BOOK … UNFORGETTABLE. EACH WORD STAYS IN OUR HEART. THE BEST FOR ALL OF YOU. THANKS FOR BEING THERE …

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