Walk the Line: Una Mannion on stepping out of her own shadow

The Sligo-based author on the importance of place and overcoming self-doubt

Una Mannion: ‘I feel giddy with excitement some days coupled by a terror of how people will receive my book.’ Photo: Róisín Loughrey

In 1992, I put all my stuff in a shipping container and moved to Sligo. I was born in Philadelphia and grew up there but my father is from Sligo so we spent our childhoods coming to Ireland for most of my life. I went to The National University of Ireland Galway (when it was UCG) in the ’80s for a year and kept just sort of gravitating back to my father’s birthplace.

Sligo is ...