In December 1995, Nuala O'Faolain and I met up in Dublin to discuss the possibility of a book of her selected columns from The Irish Times. "I'm never late," Nuala announced, when she turned up late, "but I had to wait for the bin-men to give them their Christmas tip." Bewley's coffee house was packed, so we went into a nearby, since-vanished café, where Nuala, over a plate of beans on toast, agreed to do the book if she could write an introductory 5,000-word autobiographical essay to provide a context for her public voice. An essay that famously evolved into Are You Somebody?, which appeared in October 1996, and stayed in the Irish bestsellers for five months. Published in the United States with the subtitle The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman, it reached No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and went on to sell over a million copies worldwide.
The initial Irish edition of the memoir included thirty-one of her newspaper columns – essays, in fact – under four thematic headings: People, The Times, Issues, and Belief. Twelve of those number among the seventy-one columns feature pieces and reviews which make up the current selection, and which appear here in chronological order, dating from 1985 to 2007, a year before Nuala's untimely death in May 2008.
I would like to record my sincere thanks to the following individuals for their help in compiling the selection: Gerry Smyth, Managing Editor, The Irish Times; Noirín Hegarty, Editor, the Sunday Tribune; Máiréad Brady, Librarian, South Dublin County Library; Irene Stevenson, Librarian, The Irish Times; Caroline Walsh, Literary Editor, The Irish Times; Patsey Murphy, Editor, The Irish Times Magazine; Fintan O'Toole, Assistant Editor, The Irish Times; Deirdre Brady, author, Dublin; Dr. James Skelly, Magee College, University of Ulster, Derry, Northern Ireland; and Dublin City University Library.
In an iconic radio interview four weeks before her death, Nuala told RTé broadcaster Marian Finucane: "What matters now in life is health and reflectiveness. I just shot around. I would like it if I had been a better thinker." With all due respect to dearest Nuala, the evidence herein suggests a more reflective thinker would be difficult to find.
Anthony Glavin
December 2009
