‘A lot of things boys seem to instinctually love, we tend to be more dismissive of or even concerned about’ Interview in the Irish Times

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“There’s a gap in the market for fishing families in Ireland,” Garrett Carr is telling me over coffee and scones in Dublin’s Westbury Hotel. Our literary canon is chock-full of farms and feuds and aggrieved eldest sons, but despite our island status, the fishing novel has somehow – forgive me – slipped through the net. Until now, that is.

Carr has just published his debut novel for adults, The Boy from the Sea. Set in his hometown of Killybegs,  it tells the story of Ambrose Bonnar, a fisherman, and his immediate family. When newborn baby Brendan is found on the local beach, Ambrose and his wife, Christine, adopt him into their family, but their older son Declan takes a dislike to the baby. Over a period of nearly two decades, the book follows the trials of the Bonnar family, the rivalries of Brendan and Declan and the changing fortunes of the small fishing town.

“It had always been in my mind to write about it,” says Carr. “My father was a fisherman so it seemed like something I’d be entitled to write about.”