{"id":1027,"date":"2025-09-05T14:56:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T14:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/1027\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T14:56:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T14:56:15","slug":"if-i-talk-to-my-dad-about-whats-on-my-mind-versus-whats-on-his-its-very-different-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/1027\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018If I talk to my dad about what\u2019s on my mind versus what\u2019s on his, it\u2019s very different\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

I grew up in Malahide<\/a> and I still live in the same place where I grew up. I have this thing where I\u2019m passing different versions of myself at different ages. I went to school locally and my kids go to the same school now, so I\u2019m still living in my past in a way. Some of the teachers that taught me are still there.<\/p>\n

\"Me,<\/p>\n

When I travel the world, people ask: why have you never left? I don\u2019t know what it is about Malahide, but people who grew up here move away, spend years away, but then come back. It\u2019s such a lovely place to grow up. I would have played tennis in the tennis club in the village. Everything was just very local and small. I have very happy memories of living right by the sea. I took it for granted that the sea was always there. Whenever I\u2019m not near the sea, I feel lost without it.<\/p>\n

I always tell people if they haven\u2019t been in Ireland for about 20 years to come back and see it now. It\u2019s quite different. It\u2019s developed more and [Dublin<\/a>] is this kind of vibrant, modern, cool city. I think we\u2019re a very progressive country \u2013 we\u2019re this cool little island leading the way in a lot of ways. But it has changed, and it hasn\u2019t. The last book I wrote, Into the Storm, was very much about pagan Ireland. Delving into that, I was like, god, that\u2019s who we are as a people.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re native storytellers, we\u2019re native thinkers, but for me it\u2019s a lot about the landscape. I love nature, it\u2019s how I look to connect with myself. Cities don\u2019t inspire me in the way they do other people. My mum and dad are both from Drumcondra<\/a>, but my grandparents [on my father\u2019s side] are Cork<\/a>. My grandfather was a farmer in All Hallows College. Farming is kind of in the background. Kerry is the place that we\u2019ve visited since the year I was born. We used to go to Dingle and Sneem. My sister and I would buy our diaries for the year [in Kerry]. It\u2019s just my favourite place. I arrive and I bring a notebook and pen because I know something\u2019s going to happen in my mind that makes me think.<\/p>\n

My dad (former taoiseach Bertie Ahern<\/a>) was in politics all my life. My very early memories are as a five-year-old, answering the house phone, and it would be journalists looking for him. He was always high profile. People would stop us when we were out, and talk to him. It was always about problems people wanted fixed \u2013 local constituency stuff. To me, this is the reality of what a politician is. My dad was someone who, it felt like, everyone knew. Everyone called him Bertie. I was obviously a bit more aware, on the other side, that there are more eyes on you, and that people could treat you differently depending on who they supported. I would get those vibes as well.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m interested in politics, but I had no personal desire to get into it. I\u2019m all about fiction and the \u201cwhat if\u201d. Politics couldn\u2019t be further from that. It\u2019s all real stuff all the time. If I talk to my dad about what\u2019s on my mind versus what\u2019s on his, it\u2019s very different stuff.<\/p>\n

All my books are based in Ireland. I like to take risks with my stories, but I feel that I know the people, I know who we are, I know our history, I know our humour, I know why we are the way we are. When I travel the world, people say they love the books because of that Irishness.<\/p>\n

My new book, Paper Heart<\/a>, is set in the boglands, in a town that was turf rich. Now, they can\u2019t [sell turf] any more, so there\u2019s a lot of change coming. I wanted to write about the different ways in which we dig \u2013 we dig into our hearts, we dig into the surface of the earth. But it\u2019s also near Birr Castle where there\u2019s the [I-Lofar telescope]. So, they\u2019re digging up into the sky, too.<\/p>\n

\"CeceliaCecelia Ahern with her parents, Bertie Ahern and Miriam Ahern, at the world premiere of Love, Rosie in 2014. Photograph: David M Benett\/WireImage<\/p>\n

In scripts [adapted from my books], when I read them, the one note I have is: why is the character so rude? I think that comes down to our manners and our politeness. I\u2019m not saying all Irish people are perfect, but we have a certain level of respect for each other, maybe because there are fewer of us in the country, and we know someone that knows someone, that knows someone.<\/p>\n

Even though the world is getting faster and there are other stresses, at our heart Irish people still have this connection to nature and to land. It\u2019s in our blood. It\u2019s part of us to notice the seasons changing and have discussions about the longer days, or the shorter days \u2013 to always be looking for more light. Maybe we\u2019re not [all] farming any more, but it still matters.<\/p>\n

In conversation with Niamh Donnelly. This interview is part of a series<\/a> about well-known people\u2019s lives and relationship with Ireland, and was edited for clarity and length. Paper Heart by Cecelia Ahern is published by HarperCollins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I grew up in Malahide and I still live in the same place where I grew up. I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[894,615,93,61,60,709,1455,1454],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-bertie-ahern","tag-dublin","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-magazine","tag-malahide","tag-me-myself-and-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}