Interview
‘Diaspora Irishness is a different kettle of fish to actual Ireland’ – Seán Hewitt
Writer and poet Seán Hewitt, whose autobiographical Gothic memoir All Down Darkness Wide received widespread critical acclaim and won the prestigious Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, grew up in an Irish family in Britain
Born into a family that was “around 80 per cent Irish”, the writer and poet Seán Hewitt found his sense of identity in the Catholic communities of Warrington. He grew up close to Manchester and Liverpool, cultural hubs which offered poetry readings and writing societies.
“Even though I didn’t know what a poetry reading was,” he says, “I found one and I went. You meet people there and you see [writing] as a possibility.”
As ...