Eoin McNamee

Writing Rights – Spotlight on Eoin McNamee

Last Thursday, we partnered with The Irish Times on the ‘Writing Rights’ project to mark Human Rights Day 2015.  Seven highly acclaimed Irish authors participated in this project, creating written responses – ranging from poetry to creative fiction to factual pieces – to various Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Over the coming days, we’ll be shining a spotlight on each of the authors that participated in this project.  Today is Eoin McNamee, whose contribution to ‘Writing Rights’ was a piece called ‘Not in History. Not in Another Country’, inspired by Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: ‘No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.’

For his piece, Eoin drew on his childhood memories of the case of the ‘Hooded Men’ – victims of torture in Northern Ireland more than 40 years ago.  He compares their case with the stories of torture and human rights violations that emerged from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in more recent years.

Eoin is est known for his acclaimed Blue Trilogy, which includes Booker-nominated ‘The Blue Tango’.  The third novel of the trilogy ‘Blue is the Night’ was shortlisted for the Kerry Irish Novel of the Year Award 2015.

He is also the author of two novellas, ‘The Last of Deeds’ and ‘Love in History’ and the novels, ‘Resurrection Man’ and ‘The Ultras’. He has written the Navigator trilogy for children: ‘The Navigator’, ‘City of Time’ and ‘The Frost Child’. He has also written a series under the pseudonym John Creed, which includes ‘The Sirius Crossing’, ‘The Day of the Dead’ and ‘Black Cat Black Dog’.

Writing in the RTE Guide about his most recent novel, ‘Blue is the Night’, Donal O’Donoghue commented “McNamee, a writer of power and beauty, carves out thrillers like few others. His syntax is unusual, sentences clipped and sheared, poised and purposeful. But beyond the style there is substance; no more so in this tale of a divided city (Belfast) and a fractured family (the Currans). One of the books of the year.”

Eoin was born in Kilkeel, Co. Down in 1961 and now lives in Co. Sligo. He is currently writer in residence at Maynooth University.

Read ‘Not in History. Not in Another Country’ here.

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