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

Seán Hewitt: the writer and poet took the approach to his autobiography that real life is complex, made strange by memory and feeling. Picture: Sharppix

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 ...