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Irish Times
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Donal Ryan: ‘I'm still learning about class in Ireland ... and the tribes that exist'
Donal Ryan had just been longlisted for the Booker Prize for his debut novel The Spinning Heart . So: he couldn't help himself. The jubilant author turned on his computer in 2013 and wrote an email pointing out this detail to the literary agent who had just issued him with a generic rejection to say she was not interested in representing him. 'She didn't reply. It was a pyrrhic victory for me,' Ryan laughs. Then a doubtful expression crosses his face. 'I shouldn't have bothered. I regret it.' Humble and unpretentious by nature, Ryan has a habit of worrying about things he has said or done, even and perhaps especially at moments of greatest glory. We're talking today because the Tipperary-born author has added another trophy to his crowded mantelpiece: the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction for his novel Heart, Be at Peace . But Ryan looks anxious when he joins me on a video call from his books-strewn office in the University of Limerick , where he serves as a lecturer in creative writing. It's partly because of the attention now coming his way. 'I find interviews so hard,' he says. 'After this interview is finished, I'll be worried and feel sick and find it hard to sleep.' Does a monologue play out in his head about what he's doing right or wrong? 'It never stops,' Ryan nods. 'Some days I look forward to being asleep so I can make it stop.' READ MORE If Ryan (49) is a fretter, so too are his remarkable, profound characters. Heavy emotions play out in the interior lives of Ryan's fictional creations: shame, grief, anger loom large, along with a desire to tell the truth. Whether it's lonely, bewildered Johnsey in The Thing About December or fragile, observant Lampy in From a Low and Quiet Sea, there's a ring of flinty authenticity to them and a captivating poetry. Ryan suffered through 47 rejections before he succeeded in getting The Spinning Heart published in 2012, but once it was in the world, readers recognised it for what it was: a book containing deep truths. Where other Irish authors had been setting their fiction back through the decades, perhaps to avoid the inchoate mess of the Celtic Tiger boom-to-bust, Ryan, based in Castletroy in Limerick, shone his torchlight directly on to the subject of what Irish banks did to Irish people. Narrated via 21 perspectives in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, characters offered insights about what it felt like to live on ghost estates; to buckle beneath the weight of crippling mortgages and uncertain futures. The book was longlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Guardian First Book Award. Its sequel, Heart, Be at Peace, which returns us to their lives a decade on, has already won Novel of the Year at the 2024 Irish Book Awards and now, in netting the 2025 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, has triumphed over books from authors including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Dream Count), Robert Harris (Precipice) and Elif Shafak (There are Rivers in the Sky). Until recently, you would have to look into dark corners to see drug dealing. Now it's very open. Close to my house there are dealers operating Ryan is grateful to win awards but he struggles with them too. 'They're weird, awards, because if you win, you feel a bit guilty for winning,' he says. 'If you win an award, it means other people on the shortlist have to not win it. Some of them are far more politically astute and engaged than I am. Elif Shafak is an amazing writer; she's been on trial in Turkey – she has suffered, she has been persecuted by her own government for her art. Elif is writing fiction at great personal risk. [ Donal Ryan: 'Stop apologising for yourself,' is one of the last things my mother said to me Opens in new window ] 'I'm lucky enough to live in this lovely free country where you can express yourself for the most part without fear of censure or arrest. I've never lived anywhere except north Tipp and east Limerick, Limerick city. So in one way, I'm the last person who should be writing fiction that has any kind of universal effect. But the thing is, I do believe that no matter how specific a demotic voice is, the way people think about themselves and the world around them doesn't vary much. What's generated from within us is similar for all human beings.' He adds: 'I suppose it's true that as Toni Morrison says, all art is political.' Sometimes the political act is to draw attention to invisibility. When Ryan began publishing, he tapped into a vein of Irish life that was both instantly recognisable and markedly different – these were characters so familiar you'd half-expect to step outside your house and spot them and yet they seemed to barely exist elsewhere in Irish fiction. 'When I first sat down to write The Spinning Heart, I just had Irish rural working people in mind. That's never gone away,' he says. 'They're the background and foreground of everything I do. That's who I am myself. I speak to my own people all the time, at the back of my head.' [ Heart, Be at Peace by Donal Ryan: 'Companion' novel to The Spinning Heart is a welcome return Opens in new window ] Growing up in Tipperary, Ryan wasn't conscious of class divisions. He had an idyllic childhood with his parents and brother and sister in the village of Newtown. 'It was paradise,' he says. 'There was fun contained in every blade of grass. Everybody seemed to chat all the time. And everybody seemed to do the same kinds of jobs. All the dads were plumbers and labourers and carpenters. I wouldn't have known the word egalitarian, but it seemed to me that everybody where I grew up was the same. I think that's why class is portrayed starkly in my fiction, because I was shocked into such a keen awareness of it. I'm still learning as I go along about class in Ireland, the class system and the various tribes that exist.' Author Donal Ryan: 'They're weird, awards, because if you win, you feel a bit guilty for winning.' Photograph: Fred Tanneau/AFP via Getty Images Before he became a prize-winning novelist in his 30s, Ryan was a labour inspector for the National Employment Rights Authority, where he was tasked with investigating regulatory offences by employers. What he found made him deeply aware of the gaps and inequities in the system, and how people could so easily become trapped by their circumstances. 'We used to visit language schools [in Ireland] advertising in Bangladesh for people to come and pay €2,000 for stamping their visa and an enrolment in a college. There'd be a few PCs and empty rooms and a couple of people hanging around who were meant to be lecturers. It was incredible. But nobody was breaking the law. They'd say, 'Oh the students are on a day off today or it's a holiday week.'' It's a scene revisited in Heart, Be at Peace, when one of the characters, Pokey Burke, is involved in setting up a dubious language school in Limerick city. Pokey is also involved in the drug scene and as he rises, other characters falter, worn down from debts, poor decision-making or the whiplash of negative social bias. 'People think they know the worth of your soul because of your clothes or bearing, these sudden judgments. We all do it.' It's part of the hidden Ireland Ryan keeps lifting a stone to examine. 'Until recently, you would have to look into dark corners to see drug dealing. Now it's very open. Close to my house there are dealers operating,' he says. [ What do Irish writers read? Donal Ryan, Mark Tighe, Nuala O'Connor, Claire Hennessy and more give recommendations Opens in new window ] It was Ryan's mother Anne who inspired him to write the sequel to The Spinning Heart. She had worked in Tesco in Nenagh and would sit on the till fielding questions about The Spinning Heart to customers anxious to find out what happened to characters like Pokey Burke and Bobby Mahon. They'd even get her to autograph the book. She died in 2023, after a diagnosis of breast cancer, six years after the sudden death of his father. Their deaths have hit Ryan hard. 'You realise how much you need them,' he says. 'How much you need that beautiful anchor, that lovely, predictable heaviness at the backbone of your life. I expected them to be there until 100, to have these two people in my life. My mam was only 71. It didn't feel like it was her time to die. She had so much to say and she was so full of energy and love.' His new novel, his ninth book, which he is just finishing, deals with grief. 'It's about a young man who loses his parents. It centres on that young lad's emotions and how grief affects him. When you don't confront grief properly, it can have strange effects on your psyche and your being, sometimes in a literal way, like on your skin or that sudden sweaty panic. The so-called ordinary loss, the loss of your parents, still has this terrible effect on you. And sometimes a discovery about a person you love, something you didn't know about them, can have the most profound, earth-shattering effect, so I explore those elements in the novel.' Ryan has drawn immense comfort from his wife Anne Marie, his most dedicated reader, who has suffered serious health issues. How is she doing? 'She's great. She's been through so much. She's had cancer twice. She really got beaten down the second time. Chemo is so hard. She's come through it. She's so positive.' [ Donal Ryan short story: 'He turned away from the beast, but the smell of death remained' Opens in new window ] Ryan met Anne Marie on a picket line when he was 28, when both were trade union activists with the Civil Public and Services Union. She encouraged him to pursue his dream of writing fiction, she would chase him up the stairs to write. So much stems from Anne Marie; her faith, her encouragement, her ability to delicately critique his work. 'Everything is written with her in mind. She's my first reader.' Anne Marie may soon need to give their teenage children Thomas and Lucy important tips about Ryan's fiction. 'The Spinning Heart is back on the Leaving Cert syllabus just in time for Thomas to have to do it for the Leaving Cert,' the author says. 'The poor créatúr. I don't know whether or not that'll encourage him into a writing career.' If either of his children opt for that route, they may find one day themselves facing their father in the University of Limerick in his role as a creative writing lecturer, where he does his best to encourage his students, who are 'on thin emotional ice' to keep their faith in themselves. As spells-maker Lily puts it in Heart, Be at Peace: 'Belief itself is a kind of magic. You can do things that seem impossible if you believe truly and with your whole heart.' Ryan offers a smile when I quote the lines back at him. You get the impression it's a sentiment he has carried with him his whole life, and which nourishes him even during those times, like now, when he finds the sideshow of publicity or the fear of judgment by others stressful. 'There's no way of patrolling how people interpret what you say and how people receive your work,' he says. 'You issue a blank contract when you write something, and the terms can't be negotiated or dictated by you. All you can do is tell your story the best way you can.'
BreakingNews.ie
13-06-2025
- Business
- BreakingNews.ie
Former UL President received over €215k in last 11 months in role
A former President of the University of Limerick (UL), Prof Kerstin Mey, received a salary of €215,663 in her final 11 months in the role. This is revealed in the newly released 2024 annual report for UL which shows that UL recorded a surplus of €12.44 million last year after a combined €8.2 million impairment cost from two controversial property purchases contributed to UL recording a loss of €799,000 in 2023. Advertisement As UL President since 2020, Prof Mey presided over the controversies from the 2019 purchase of a Dunnes Stores site in Limerick city centre and the 2023 purchase of 20 houses for student accommodation at Drominbeg Square, Rhebogue. UL recorded a €3 million impairment on the Dunnes Stores site purchase and a €5.2 million impairment for the Rhebogue purchase. Now, in UL's 2024 annual report, it records how Prof Mey went on leave from her role as President on March 27th, 2024, 'and following a mediation process in June 2024 she resigned as President effective 31 August 2024'. The report states that during the reporting period up to the end of August 2024 - - 11 months - her salary was €215,663. Advertisement The overdue 2023 annual report separately confirms that Prof Mey was paid €225,559 in 2023. At a UL appearance before the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) last October, UL Chancellor, Prof Brigid Laffan told members that Prof Mey was being paid €175,000 per year while on sabbatical from her new role as a professor of visual culture at the college. Prof Laffan told them Prof May had lost the confidence of UL's management after the university overpaid on a €12.58 million deal to buy 20 houses, and it was in the college's best interest to come to an arrangement which would enable it to appoint a new president and move on from the controversy. Prof Brigid Laffan told the PAC that Prof Mey received no severance payments after stepping down as president. Prof Mey was initially appointed as interim UL President in September 2020 and was appointed to the role for 10 years in October 2021. Advertisement The 2024 surplus of €12.44 million followed UL revenues increasing by eight per cent from €364 million to €392.5 million as academic fee income increased from €126 million to €133 million and State grants rose from €80.98 million to €94.48 million. UL's total expenditure increased from €365.67 million to €380.67 million as staff costs rose from €205.8 million to €223.17 million. In her report UL Chancellor, Brigid Laffan states that UL's success has unfortunately 'tended to obscure shortcomings in its governance and internal workings which have become increasingly apparent and problematic in recent years' Prof Laffan said that 'it is clear that UL must transform once again, but this time from the inside'. Advertisement Prof Laffan said that an implementation/recovery plan has been approved by the Governing Authority and endorsed by the Higher Education Authority, and is a very welcome first step in doing that'. Prof Laffan added that 'it is in everyone's interest that UL is properly run, and I think we are seeing encouraging signs that it will be in the future. She added: 'I am confident that both the Governing Authority and Executive Committee are committed to doing what is necessary, and we will devote ourselves to ensuring this plan is fully implemented so that UL develops a strong system of governance, high performance and accountability.' The report discloses that UL's spend last year on Investigations and Mediation under Policies & Procedures - Workplace Dignity & Respect, Grievance and Acceptable Behaviours in the Workplace and Protected Disclosures totalled €97,402 that included €67,760 spent on investigations. Advertisement The overall €97,402 spend followed a spend of €75,695 on investigations and mediation in 2023. Numbers earning over €100,000 at UL last year increased from 356 to 391 in line with national pay agreement increases and recruitment. Total numbers employed increased from 2,771 to 2,818. A number of the top earners would be teaching medics and the top earner in the 12 months to the end of September 2024 earned between €330,000 to €340,000. In his own report, Acting UL President, Professor Shane Kilcommins stated that 'it is heartening to see the positive financial results for the year, demonstrating that despite it being a very challenging time for UL - as we work through the fallout from the Rhebogue transaction and the Honan's Quay acquisition – the University of Limerick financial performance is strong and is prudently managed'. Prof Kilcommins states that 'we want to put the failings of UL's recent acquisitions behind us, but to do this we will have to implement a programme of organisational transformation, to regain institutional grip and to rebuild trust and confidence in University of Limerick's ability to manage its own affairs.' Chief Financial & Performance Officer, John Field stated that 'the financial year 2023-24 shows an overall surplus, driven by strong revenue increase and inflationary pressure on pay and non-pay combined'. Ireland Helen McEntee says mobile phone pouch scheme will... Read More Mr Field said that the University cash and balance sheet positions remain strong despite the small fall in overall cash balances. He said that the University's long-term forecasts show a continued healthy liquidity position. total reserves amounted to €286 million. He said that there are still a number of risks and uncertainties including the threat to cyber security and the impact of the cost of living and accommodation crisis on student enrolment and retention. Last year, UL's income from its residences rose from €22.2 million to €23.4 million.
Irish Times
13-06-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
UL returns €12.4m surplus a year after soured property deals drag it into the red
Accounts for the University of Limerick for the past two years, filed recently, show that an €8.3 million impairment dragged it to a loss in 2023 but that it bounced back last year with a surplus of €12.4 million. That compares with a surplus of €10.8 million in 2022 before the university found itself mired in crisis. UL has been at the centre of controversy following losses incurred by overpaying for student homes and a Dunnes Stores stores site in Limerick city centre. The subsequent fallout prompted the resignation of its president, Prof Kerstin Mey, at the end of August, having been on leave from her post for the previous five months. The university's annual report notes that Prof Mey was paid a salary of €215,663 during the 11 months of the financial year that she was in office. Prof Shane Kilcommins, who stepped in as acting president of the university in April last year was paid a salary of €110,117 over the five months from that point to the end of the financial year. READ MORE The figures are the first since the controversy first broke. The financial accounts for both September 2023 and September 2024 financial periods were signed off in March 2025, due to 'delays finalising the audit' for its 2023 accounts. Despite being appointed in November 2023, following the conclusion of the university's financial year, the Chancellor of UL, Prof Brigid Laffan, said it was 'necessary' to comment on the accounts due to the 'unprecedented requirement for the University to include two impairment charges in the Financial Statements'. 'The necessity for both impairments arose as the University acquired properties for a price now determined to be greater than the recoverable value of those properties,' she said. Prof Laffan said the impairments 'had the effect of turning a healthy surplus for the period into an overall deficit of €0.7 million'. She said that the 'overall financial sustainability' of UL will not be 'materially impacted' by incurring the impairment charges but said the policy, controls and risk management failures have to be addressed. The Comptroller & Auditor General's report, which was included in the financial statement, said the university paid 'significantly over the open market value' in the two controversial transaction. It also confirms that UL reported 'certain concerns related to the student accommodation transaction to An Garda Síochána.' Prof Shane Kilcommins said the UL community had been 'justifiably shocked' by the situation. 'There is sadness, and anger too, at the damage that the Rhebogue controversy has done to the university's reputation. UL has been in the media for the wrong reasons,' he said. The university and its subsidiaries incurred a surplus of €12.44 million after academic fee income reached a new peak last year at €133 million. The income stream has steadily increased in each of the past four years, with the primary source being undergraduate fees. Staff costs at the university last year rose to €223.2 million, up 8 per cent. The university recorded donations of €1.84 million in 2024 and €1.7 million in 2023. 'UL's success has tended to obscure shortcomings in its governance and internal workings which have become increasingly apparent and problematic in recent years,' Prof Laffan writes in the 2024 accounts.
Irish Times
28-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Minister hails ‘exciting' degree where students spend two years working in industry
A new biopharma degree where students spend half their time on campus and half completing paid work experience has been hailed by the Minister for Higher Education as an 'exciting step forward' for how third level education is delivered in Ireland. The new BSc/MSc in immersive bioscience and biotherapeutics at University of Limerick (UL) is due to be launched on Thursday. The development comes at a time of debate in higher education circles about whether the sector is too reliant on industry-sponsored research and education in order to plug State funding gaps. UL has described the degree as a new venture. designed in collaboration with international companies such as Eli Lilly and Analogue Devices, which seeks to 'cultivate the leading scientific minds of the future'. READ MORE The companies will contribute to curriculum design, participate as guest contributors and host students on industry residencies. The first intake of students will be in September 2026. It follows a similar model to UL's immersive software engineering programme, now in its third year of operation. Students will receive a bachelor and master of science degree in four years, with two years spent learning on campus and two years working in biotech industries. UL says students will have the 'competitive advantage of two years of experience working in industry when they graduate'. Minister for Higher Education James Lawless welcomed the launch of the 'iBio' programme. 'This innovative, industry-led and learner-focused course recognises that not all learning happens in lecture halls,' he said. 'Through immersive, hands-on experiences, both on campus and in the workplace, students will graduate with not just a degree, but two full years of real-world industry experience.' The programme, he said, offered 'more choice, more relevance, a modern model of education that's fit for the future and supports the vision of education driving Ireland's economy.' Acting UL president Professor Shane Kilcommins said the new degree represented a 'giant leap forward' in the delivery of undergraduate scientific education. Students, he said, will be 'embedded in the knowledge community where they are active and interactive partners in the learning process.' Prof Jakki Cooney, iBio course director, said the course was all about developing a passion for the science of disease and medicines, about being creative and curious about the world, embracing challenges and working in teams using scientific data to solve complex problems. 'We are offering a new way to learn the science and biology of medicine making and discovery,' she said. The Government has acknowledged that there is a funding gap of more than €300m facing Irish higher education and has pledged to address this over successive budgets. Meanwhile, research by into funding of Irish universities found that industry funding of third level is increasingly becoming the norm. The paper highlighted potential risks such as the erosion of support for academic endeavours that may not be perceived as having commercial value, as well as challenges in preserving the integrity of academia in a landscape increasingly driven by market-driven priorities.
Irish Times
27-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Senior official at UL resigns after university overpaid €5.2m for student housing
A top University of Limerick official has resigned his post, a year after the institution was rocked by a botched property deal in which it overpaid €5.2 million for student housing. Andrew Flaherty was chief commercial officer of UL since October 2020. He had responsibility for commercial activities, buildings and estates when UL went ahead with a €11.9 million deal in 2022 in which it paid significantly above market price for 20 student homes. The arrangement led to the resignation last June of then UL president Prof Kerstin Mey and heavy criticism by the Comptroller & Auditor General , the public spending watchdog. Mr Flaherty had been on administrative leave since June. READ MORE [ University of Limerick proposes moving school of medicine to Dunnes Stores site Opens in new window ] In a statement emailed on Tuesday evening to UL staff and students, university chancellor Prof Brigid Laffan said he had left the institution with immediate effect. 'The chief commercial officer has tendered his resignation from employment with University of Limerick with effect from 27 May 2025,' she wrote. 'The university has accepted that resignation. The chief commercial officer has also resigned from all directorships and offices associated with or connected to the university.' A biography of Mr Flaherty on UL's website said he previously worked in companies such as Generali, Utmost Pan Europe, GE, Aer Lingus, Chill, Genworth and ESAT Digifone. In July last year, UL's then chief officer Prof Shane Kilcommins started High Court defamation proceedings in a personal capacity against Mr Flaherty and his wife Audrey Flaherty. Prof Kilcommins is now acting president of UL. At the time the court proceedings were initiated, both Prof Kilcommins and Mr Flaherty sat on the 14-member UL executive committee, which advises the university president. According to legal records, the case remains before the courts. In a report last September, the C&AG found fault with the student housing deal and another UL property transaction in Limerick city that resulted in combined financial losses of more than €8 million. The C&AG report said UL's €5.2 million overpayment when buying the student homes resulted in a 'significant loss in value for money'. There were 'significant' due diligence failures, even though UL had adopted new procedures because of problems with a separate Limerick city deal in 2019. The report also concluded it was 'difficult to see' how the 2019 deal that led to a €3 million loss 'represented value for money'. The student housing deal at Rhebogue, 3km from the UL campus, was previously the subject of a special report for UL's governing authority that found the settled €10.9 million price rose by more than €1 million when the final contract was signed only nine days later. UL has also been under scrutiny over the purchase of a city centre property which it later admitted 'significantly overpaying' for. The university bought the former Dunnes Stores property at Honan's Quay for more than €8 million in 2019. It later wrote down the value of the site by €3 million in its financial accounts. In a message to staff on Tuesday , Prof Kilcommins said a 'concept proposal' for the possible redevelopment of the Honan's Quay site was discussed. This involves relocating UL's existing school of medicine to a 'fully redeveloped, high-quality facility' at the city-centre site.
