Eastbourne-based crime and thriller writer Sheila Bugler returns home to her native Ireland with her latest book Dark Road Home.
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00:00 Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely as
00:06 always to speak to the Eastbourne-based crime writer, Sheila Buggler. Now Sheila, after
00:11 writing a number of books set in Eastbourne, finally with this book, tenth book, Dark Road
00:17 Home. You are going home. It's a book for the first time in your career which you set
00:22 in your native Ireland. Why? Why have you gone back?
00:26 Why have I gone back? Well yes, it's my tenth novel. I think I've always wanted to set a
00:31 book in Ireland and this just felt the right time to do it. I've had the idea for this
00:37 book in my head for a very, very long time actually. And before this I'd been writing
00:42 my Eastbourne series set in Eastbourne and it just felt like it was time to finally,
00:47 as you say, go back home and write a book set in Ireland.
00:50 And intriguingly, it's about someone who's going back.
00:53 Absolutely. And yes, so it's about a character called Leah Rine who left Ireland 18 years
00:58 ago and she's coming back for the first time. She's going back to her fictional hometown
01:03 of Dungarry in County Clare in the west of Ireland and she's come back to face up to
01:08 the terrible events that caused her to leave the country in the first place.
01:11 Right. And the point is that she did run away.
01:14 Yes, she did run away. Yes. And she's been filled with guilt for 18 years and she's finally
01:20 kind of talked herself into coming back and facing up to everything.
01:23 So that's a monumental thing to do, to return after 18 years. But the return doesn't go
01:28 terribly smoothly, does it? Well, it doesn't because it's a crime novel.
01:34 But the idea for her not coming back, it was a very common thing years ago with Irish people
01:40 when they emigrated to the UK and America. They went and they always thought they'd go
01:45 back to Ireland and often they never did. And I've always found that extremely poignant
01:51 and sad, those people who left their country always thinking they'd go back one day and
01:55 they didn't. So that was kind of at the back of my head when I was writing Leah. Obviously,
01:58 it's different for her. But yes, she goes back to Dungarry and all sorts of terrible
02:02 things happen because it's a crime novel, so they have to.
02:05 Absolutely. And this is you going back in a way, isn't it? In literary terms, because
02:11 you've been away from Ireland longer than you were there. So it was quite a leap, wasn't
02:15 it, to do that? Yes, it is a huge leap. And actually, I'm
02:20 an Irish immigrant who always thought I would go back and live in Ireland. And it's been
02:24 a source of sadness to me over the years that I ever did that. So in a way, through this
02:28 book, I am going back home. It sounds fantastic. So the book is called
02:33 Dark Road Home by Sheila Buggler from Eastbourne, Burset in Ireland. Sheila, as always, lovely
02:39 to speak to you. Thank you. Thank you so much.