Life

Radio review: Anne Enright proves a sparky castaway

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann is an Irish News columnist and writes a weekly radio review.

Nuala McCann
Nuala McCann Nuala McCann

Desert Island Discs Radio 4

Motherwell BBC Sounds

Celebrated Irish writer Anne Enright brought a lively chatty vibe to this episode of Desert Island Discs – she was sparky and funny in a way that seemed slightly at odds with some of her darker writing.

It was that mix of open conversation, the self deprecation and the fun of her that made it special.

She is the youngest of a large family – the last of five – which meant that perhaps her parents had run out of steam by the time she came along and she was free to be herself.

“I had the luxury of being an artist,” she said.

Enright gets many Irish childhoods spot on and she sees the humour in situations.

So that when she won a scholarship to Canada at 16 and ended up talking to a Dutch fella, she couldn’t get over that he didn’t believe in God and often hung about naked with the rest of his family.

She does a great impersonation of an English woman who, on hearing Enright had been educated by nuns, drawled: “Were they TERRIBLY sadistic?”

And the laughter is what was lovely about this interview.. the sparkle of her and her desert island luxury – a set of pure cotton bed sheets “really high thread – 600 or nothing”.

She skirted over harsh times in her life when she was “burned out” and ended up in, as she put it, a “facility”, unable to button her shirt and “wiped”.

But there is a matter of factness about her and how she took the meds, thought about her future and got up and got on.

Campaigning journalist Deborah Orr died of cancer late last year.

Her autobiography, Motherwell, is a tale of growing up in the steel town, near Glasgow, Scotland – she inherited her own steeliness.

Orr moved far from her roots and her working class parents despite her mother’s best efforts.

It is a powerful and poignant memoir that is beautifully written and then, equally beautifully told by actress Siobhan Redmond.

Orr was a “weird child” who found solace in books and nature.

Her mother cast a long shadow in her life. Did she mother well?