I was raised between Greystones in Wicklow and Dundrum in Dublin. I went to an all-girls’ school, the now defunct Notre Dame in Churchtown. I had certain challenges in school because I had ADHD and OCD. I would challenge teachers and not sit in my chair.

I would hide sandwiches down the back of the radiator – I didn’t want to eat them, so I found inventive places to put them. I pulled down the curtains in the PE room. They didn’t have names for these things [ADHD and OCD] back then; I’m 41 now, I was older getting a diagnosis, as so many women are. But my parents stuck up for me. My parents accepted me the way I was and treated it as my uniqueness. I felt understood at home.

I saw an American comedian who lives in Ireland joking that when Irish people say that “he or she is away with the fairies”, that is code for they have ADHD. I need to get that printed on a T-shirt. That was how people described me: as being away with the fairies. And now I literally write stories about fairies. I was away with fairies from a young age, I never left them, and I’m still with them now.

[ Ellen Ryan: ‘I want this book to be empowering for boys. We can’t leave them out’Opens in new window ]

I love history and I have a really strong sense of our ancestors because I read about them a lot. My grandma studied classics and archaeology in UCD as a mature student – when she was doing that she was telling me stories, stories we revisited when I did classical studies for fifth and sixth year. She said to me, “You know, the Táin is every bit as powerful and as worthy as the Odyssey”. I hero-worshipped my grandad. When he passed away, I know this sounds strange, but I felt less Irish. I’ve always had a sense that my forebears earned their Irishness: they fought for liberation, they didn’t just exist. To be Irish was to suffer for a long time.

We had rebel heroes in our family, their pictures were on the walls. I went to a State funeral and family-only State reception at Dublin Castle in 2001 for my great grand-uncle Patrick Doyle, who was my grandad’s uncle. He was hanged in 1921, and his body dumped in a mass grave. He was exhumed and reburied in Glasnevin Cemetery with the rest of the “Forgotten Ten” on October 14th, 2001, more than 80 years after their executions during the Irish War of Independence. Many thousands of people lined the streets as we passed with the hearses.

In our country, we’ve always had to fight to protect our culture. Being Irish is a living culture, and we can continue to bring that to life and revitalise our stories, our music, our dance forms, our food. Ireland is my muse: that’s where my conviction for writing comes from.

You have to come from a place of conviction when you’re writing. I consider what state of mind or mood I’m in when I write. WB Yeats strongly believed in the magic, the energy transference in writing. When you look at a piece of art, you can feel a certain energy off it. Some art – it stirs you, and you don’t know why. I believe in energy transference: I want to make sure that I’m bringing positive energy into my writing and stories that I then share with young people.

I am spiritual, but I haven’t gone to Mass in a long time. In this country we’ve always put pagan beliefs into our Christianity. Look at our beliefs around fairy forts – everyone jokes that they don’t believe in fairies, but they’re not going to mess with fairy forts – just in case. In my new book, They Called Us Witch, I include the story of Biddy Early, a healer during Famine times but also a devout Catholic. Several priests turned up at her funeral despite the fact that she had also been tried as a witch.

‘If I did nothing else but make Irish children more proud of their culture and, by extension, of themselves, I would die happy with that’

—  Ellen Ryan

Writing can be an isolating craft, so it’s been huge post-Covid for writers that their partners are in the house every now and again. I work from home in Greystones where I live with my husband Rob and my daughter Martha, who is eight. Rob is not in the arts, but when I met him I thought he said he was an actor. It turned out he was an actuary, which is quite different. I spent the whole first night falling for this “struggling actor”.

My husband’s a very grounding force in my life, and living in Greystones among my clan is grounding. When I was younger, I used to overthink and worry about my career and successes and failures. When I’m with Martha and my nieces, that falls away a little bit. I gain perspective.

It’s been a busy time for me. The Lost Gods series is coming in 2027, it’s a trilogy, and that’s going to be my answer to Percy Jackson. It’ll be published in Ireland and the UK, if it sells further afield, then great. But I always think of the kids I’ve met here in Ireland in libraries. I think if I did nothing else but make Irish children more proud of their culture and, by extension, of themselves, I would die happy with that.

In conversation with Nadine O’Regan

They Called Us Witch by Ellen Ryan, the stories of powerful women who have been labelled as witches throughout history, for readers aged 14+, is published by Harper Fire