Sebastian Barry, born in Dublin in 1955, stands among Ireland’s most acclaimed writers. He often works in a former vicarage in County Wicklow, a room that radiates heat and reflects the quiet intensity of his craft. His novel Days Without End, a landmark work that critics predicted would transition to the screen, earned him Booker Prize recognition with multiple nominations and introduced him to a broader audience in bookstores. His most recent work, From Time Immemorial, issued by AdN, examines the lingering effects of the Catholic Church’s abuses on Irish institutions. Barry writes from a Catholic background and has a personal life that intersects with his art, including a marriage to actress Allison Deegan, whom he describes as a Protestant partner in life and in perspective.
Why did you want to write such a sad story?
Sixty-one years ago, when he was six or seven, Barry and his mother moved to the castle where the novel unfolds. His parents had just separated, and his sister and he would watch a man gaze toward the sea. That memory, tinged with a sense of happiness he once believed he possessed, became the wellspring for a difficult tale about past sexual abuse and its long shadow on the present.
In Ireland’s darkest history we can place the old actions of the IRA, but also the pedophilia of the Church. What motivated you to write about this topic?
In Ireland, childhoods were taught to keep silent about abuse. A painful family incident underscored that silence, echoing the imposed hush once shouted in a famous play. Barry’s vocation gave him a platform to challenge that ban. He found a conduit in the character Thomas Kettle, a recently retired police officer who recalls abuses from the past, offering a kind of Irish freedom to discuss what is ordinarily left unsaid.
The book is less about the abuses themselves and more about their consequences.
Indeed, the narrative follows a survivor with a life made complicated by what happened to others who cherished the world. Barry likens his approach to landscaping of the mind, cultivating insight even as brutality persists. The story charts how love and awe for life intersect with the shocks of what is endured by those who hold the world dear.
Do you think the Irish Catholic Church has done everything it should have done in relation to the victims?
Barry, speaking from a family with clergy members, has a blunt assessment. He argues for structural accountability, even disbandment, noting that Ireland faced a reluctance to compensate victims. The problem, in his view, runs deeper than a few dishonest individuals; it is a systemic failure that has harmed children and demanded vigilance. Through the novel, he aims to alert readers to ongoing danger and to encourage greater scrutiny and reform.
Do you think you can now talk about this issue more freely in your country?
Barry observes that priestly authority has diminished in recent decades, reducing their power to dictate beliefs or behavior. He notes personal conflicts within his own family, including two gay children, and asserts that enforcing rigid sexual norms harms individuals. He advocates letting laws govern public discourse on sexuality to protect people from harm while promoting greater acceptance and understanding.
How is the novel received in his own country?
The response has been largely positive. Prominent voices have acknowledged the courage behind the work, with echoes of past critics who challenged prevailing authorities. Barry emphasizes that Ireland is a country both complex and resilient, where his collaboration with neighbors and figures who faced disapproval in the past helped pave the way for honest storytelling. He remains mindful that he is not a pioneer but part of a tradition of writers who push boundaries in defense of truth and empathy.
He often draws on family experiences in his fiction, here turning his own childhood separation into a broader meditation through the eyes of the protagonist.
Barry seeks to view painful events with compassion. While he once aimed to tell the story of his parents through intricate arithmetic of narrative, the device of Tom allowed the exploration to unfold with honesty and restraint, avoiding direct revelation where it would feel forced.
Was his father an abuser?
Not really. The father figure was notably distant, with a lack of emotional engagement. Barry reflects on his own relationship with his father and acknowledges that the guidance he would seek from him was not forthcoming. The personal memory remains distant, and the author explains that the journey of writing was tempered by a distance he could maintain from the past while still honoring it.