Marita Conlon McKenna - Rebel Sisters

Little bookworms of the ’90s, tell us about your childhood novels. They almost certainly included Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and Little Women. No doubt To Kill a Mockingbird made an appearance, and then there was Under the Hawthorn Tree, the childhood famine book about Eily, Michael and Peggy O’Driscoll that captured a generation.

Twenty-six years later and 20 novels under her belt, Marita Conlon-McKenna still says those characters took on a life of their own. However, in her new novel, Rebel Sisters, even Marita herself couldn’t have made up the role that three sisters, Muriel, Grace and Nellie Gifford, played in the 1916 Rising. Right in the middle of the action, this fictional novel is based on factual characters.

Under the Hawthorn Tree

“Funnily enough, when Under the Hawthorn Tree was first going to print, the publishers asked me would I consider writing a book on the 1916 Rising,” says Marita.

“I remember laughing, thinking not a hope. I didn’t think I had another book in me, never mind something on the Rising. After all, I wrote that famine story for one of my children. It was supposed to just be a book for my family but my God did it grow legs.

“At the time, I was doing some creative writing but I didn’t have much time to give to it, I had four children under seven. Then one afternoon, I was ironing away, listening to the radio, and this teacher came on from a school down the country, I don’t even remember where. They had a field which was always boggy so the board of management decided to drain it to a make a pitch for the community. However, there was a big hawthorn tree in the middle and when they went to chop it down, they discovered three skeletons – tiny children’s skeletons.”

First Draft

“So the authorities came and did bone density aging and dated them back to the famine. The teacher was saying: ‘I’ve been trying to teach my pupils about the famine. It goes in one ear and out the other, and now all the class talks about are these three children, asking who were they, what happened them, how did they die?’

“I couldn’t get it out of my head and the next day when my son was asleep, I took out a pad and paper and wrote the first chapter. Literally, it just came out on the page and was written within a few minutes. That’s exactly the chapter that is in the book today. In fact, there were very little edits made to the book overall.”

Written so simply, Marita says Under the Hawthorn Tree has really gone beyond her at this stage. Translated into over a dozen languages, including Chinese, it’s even been used in refugee camps in Africa and Palestine.

“I still get girls in their 30s coming up to me saying: ‘Oh my God, that was my favourite book, I remember it so clearly.”

Building to this Moment

Marita says it took her that book and the other 19 in between to enable her to successfully tackle the story of the Gifford sisters.

“I couldn’t have written this book 10, even five years ago. I needed the experience of tackling big plots and research. I needed to be at a time in my life to give it the attention it deserved.”

“Because when I really got into researching the Gifford sisters, my heart was pounding with excitement about their stories, but it was also a huge undertaking. I never intended writing about the 1916 Rising, not because I wasn’t interested but it is such a male historical event. I have great admiration for men like Thomas MacDonagh and Joe Plunkett but I could not see how I could create a female fiction book about them.”

Kilmainham Gaol

“The only chink in that armour was when I would visit Kilmainham Gaol over the years. On the tour, you’re brought to the chapel and they talk about a lady called Grace Gifford who married Joe Plunkett and I thought, bar Countess Markievicz, it’s the only mention of a woman in the 1916 story.

“Then they bring you to the stone breakers yard where the executions took place. Massive stone walls where all you can see is the sky and it doesn’t matter if I went in the middle of winter or a sunny hot day, every time I stood there, I got an incredible eerie shiver down my back, time stopping still in history.

“Something kept touching me, making me think. I kept going back to Grace Gifford, who was this girl that married this man who was executed? She was in Kilmainham Gaol hours before he was shot. And when I started reading the last letters of these men, I realised her sister Muriel was married to Thomas MacDonagh. Thomas and Joe were executed within 24 hours of each other and two sisters were widowed. And their other sister Nellie worked in Liberty Hall, was very friendly with James Connolly and fought in the College of Surgeons. How was I not aware of this? I had to know more.”

Women Finding a Voice

Marita has certainly helped these women find their voice in history but says she couldn’t have possibly written about the Rising in the way she did if it wasn’t based on fact.

“The characters had to be real. There were only 16 people executed in Kilmainham. I couldn’t have had some pretend guy with a wife or girlfriend shot. Equally, only a few women fought in the College of Surgeons. How could I have just made up another woman and added her in there? It wouldn’t have been right.

“So, in writing this, I had to stick to fact. Research wise, it was a huge undertaking. I had massive charts detailing the girl’s whereabouts – where they went, who they met. As the book comes closer and closer to the Rising, it goes into the details of their days and even hours, but it’s still a fictional book.

“I had the freedom to write about how I thought the Gifford girls would act in situations, how they would feel.

“It took me three years and all that time I kept thinking, I hope no other author realises just how amazing their story is,” she laughs.

“There is a huge amount of media coverage of this unique commemoration but I hope this book gives readers a different avenue to understand this important political era of Irish history.”

Although Rebel Sisters has only been on the bookshelves a few weeks, it has already topped the original fiction bestselling list in Ireland.

“In a way, I feel my whole writing career has been building up to the moment, to writing this book. If this book grows wings, once again, it will be down to the story of three siblings who played their part in a unique moment of Irish history.”