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Sixty seconds with Gene Kerrigan...
Gene Kerrigan has been a journalist in Dublin for over 30 years, writing mostly about politics, corruption and crime. His latest novel is Dark Times in the City.
RTE: Describe yourself in a sentence?
Kerrigan: Bewitched, bothered and bewildered.
RTE: What's the one record you'd take to a desert island?
Kerrigan: The Essential George Gershwin.
RTE: What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Kerrigan: Employed. Ireland was pretty poor back then, with mass emigration. Just getting a job, any job, was a scramble. Some of my classmates ended up in Australia, Canada and the USA. I became a projectionist at my local cinema and spent 12 years at it, subliminally picking up a lot about story construction and dialogue. I refer to that time as my career in show business.
RTE: Who's your oldest friend?
Kerrigan: Pat Brennan. She was my workmate when I started in journalism, later my boss and later we wrote a book together.
RTE: If I ruled the world...
Kerrigan: . . . I’m afraid I’d be unable to resist spending a day or two settling scores, in a rather colourful way, with various dictators, bankers and abusers of power. Then I’d declare democracy and turn myself in at the nearest police station.
RTE: Which book do you wish you'd written?
Kerrigan: Catch 22. I was 18 when I first read it and I can still feel the sense of joy that came with every turn of the page.
RTE: What makes you angry?
Kerrigan: Smugness.
RTE: Name your five dream dinner party guests.
Kerrigan: Omar Little, Stringer Bell, Jimmy McNulty, Lester Freamon and Bubbles.
RTE: Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with?
Kerrigan: Any of the politicians I’ve written about over the past 30 years.
RTE: What inspired you to start writing?
Kerrigan: Reading. I read voraciously, fiction and non-fiction, with a total lack of discrimination, and thereby got a lopsided but useful education. The fact that I’m now on the other side of things, that I’ve produced ten books over the past 25 years, remains a wonder to me.
RTE: Where would you most like to live?
Kerrigan: Paris or New York – but I’d end up coming back to Dublin.
RTE: Sum up your latest book in no more than 12 words.
Kerrigan: A decent man is forced to do terrible things.
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