May 25, 2025 • 24 mins
Renowned author Colm Tóibín's international bestseller Brooklyn deals with the agonies of trying to adapt to the customs of a strange new land. When we meet main character Eilis Lacey 20 years later, in Tóibín’s latest novel, Long Island, she again grapples with the pull of her home country Ireland.
So what does Tóibín make of our yearning to belong, and how it can twist us internally? How it can drive otherwise rational people to damn entire groups of people?
In this special episode, Tóibín, who is in Australia for the Sydney Writers’ Festival and the Melbourne Writers Festival, toys with these themes in a discussion on migrants, Donald Trump and the new Pope. And the times when even he can’t find the right words, in his own life.
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S1 (00:02):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is the morning edition. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris. It's Monday,
May 26th. Colm Toibin is quite simply, one of the
most revered writers in modern literature. As one of his
fellow authors once put of Toibin, who has been shortlisted
(00:25):
for the Booker Prize multiple times, he's there when the
thorn enters the skin. And so he is his international
best selling novel. Brooklyn takes us inside the mind of
Eilis Lacey, a meek young woman who is pushed by
her family against her own wishes to emigrate from a
small Irish town to the United States in the 1950s.
(00:47):
Prepared only by a family of women who, as Tobin writes,
could do everything except say out loud what it was
they were thinking. The book later became a hit movie
starring Saoirse Ronan, who won plaudits for playing out the
agonies of trying to adapt to the customs of a
strange new land. When we meet Eilish 20 years later
(01:08):
in Tobin's latest novel, Long Island, she again feels the
pull of Ireland after she discovers that her American husband
has fathered a child with another woman. So what does Tobin,
who has lived in Barcelona, Los Angeles, New York and
Dublin make of our yearning to belong and how it
can twist us internally? How it can drive otherwise rational
(01:32):
people to dam entire groups of people. Today, Colm Toibin,
who is in Australia for the Sydney Writers Festival and
the Melbourne Writers Festival, gives his insights into Gaza, Donald
Trump and the new pope and the times when even
he can't find the right words in his own life. So, Callum,
(01:57):
the first thing I really want to ask you about
is the issue of belonging. It's something I'm super passionate
about myself and so many of the main characters in
your book struggle with this. Like where do they belong?
Is this something that comes from a personal struggle? Like,
do you struggle with this feeling?
S2 (02:12):
You see, I think it comes from a real rootedness
that some of the characters also feel. In other words,
that you're from a town. I'm from Enniscorthy, County Wexford.
My parents were born there. My grandparents were born there.
And things go back further than that if you bothered
to investigate. My father was a teacher and my two
sisters were teachers. So that meant that we had a
(02:33):
relationship with the town. And that's where I'm from. And
therefore it means that either you make a decision early
on in your life, and it's about sensibility, that there
are a lot of people I know who just wanted
to stay in the town, love the rhythms of it,
love the years going by, just love the next generation coming.
And then there are people like me who just looked
at the main road very, very carefully at a very
(02:56):
young age and loved the train going to Dublin if
anyone was going anywhere, if a circus came, you know,
like if a, you know, if a missionary came saying,
Come to Africa and join the missions, I would go
have gone anywhere and I'm still like that.
S1 (03:11):
And so tell me, I mean, is any of that
rooted in the fact that you're a gay man who
grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in Ireland? I
can't imagine that might have been necessarily the easiest place
to be with the Catholic Church ruling so much there.
Is any of that related?
S2 (03:25):
Um, I don't think so. I mean, even when you
say you're gay, man, I wonder who are you talking about?
Because of course, you spent your time thinking you were
not gay. You just preferred blokes, you know? In other words,
the identity tag came later, and it would have been
so afraid if someone had said you were any. You're
a queer or anything, but you felt I'm not a queer.
(03:46):
I just like blokes. Um, the Catholic Church wasn't the
problem as much as the general society where this thing
was unmentionable. It wasn't really that it was illegal. Of
course it was illegal. But it wasn't just illegal. Legal.
No one said anything about it, so it didn't really
oppress you in any way that was obvious to you.
It oppressed you in ways that were much more serious
(04:06):
because it was all about silences. It was all about
that strange oppression. Where do not mention this. And then
later on don't tell so and so and oh my God,
what will so-and-so think? And and then everyone got over it.
I mean, what's really irritating in a way, is that
everybody got over it, and you wonder why they couldn't
have got over it a generation earlier, since they're so
easy now about it. And, you know, it's really fashionable
(04:27):
to be queer. And people's grannies love them because they're queer.
Why didn't their grannies try that out, like when in 1962?
S1 (04:34):
Or why had that never been a problem to begin with?
S2 (04:36):
Yeah, that would be. Yeah. Exactly why that.
S1 (04:38):
Would be.
S2 (04:38):
More ideal. Yeah, yeah. But, um, oddly enough, the church
is not the problem. The church is on the run,
you know, and we have them on the run. And
I like this new pope. I just think he's, um. Well,
he's the same age as me, and I like anyone
who's the same age as me, but I, um, he's
I think he's a quiet, spoken, thoughtful person. And in politics,
that would be such a relief. After some of the
(05:00):
noise we've been hearing from some of the buffoons. I
won't name him.
S1 (05:04):
Well, you not know.
S2 (05:06):
But he's called Donald Trump.
S1 (05:07):
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Well,
I wanted to ask you about the new pope because
you have actually written a lot about Catholicism. You wrote
a travel book, The Sign of the cross Travels in
Catholic Europe. You wrote a play about the Virgin Mary,
but then you also once wrote in an essay, one
of the purposes of literature, as Joyce made clear, is
to put religion in its place. So where would you
(05:28):
put religion if you could?
S3 (05:30):
And I don't know.
S2 (05:32):
And I was in the Vatican recently, and I realized
that I'd been growing fond of the place, and I'd
been growing very tolerant about Holy Mother and the one
true religion and the I suppose it has to do
now with the fact that in America, the only voice
of sanity now would be something like the bishop of,
(05:52):
you know, Trump really had it in for Pope Francis
and he in December just before he was inaugurated, he
appointed an ambassador to the Vatican, who really had written
against France and almost railed against Francis and Francis in retaliation,
in January of this year appointed a new Cardinal Archbishop
(06:12):
of Washington, D.C., who was in San Diego. And just
before he left San Diego in January, he led a
march of migrants against Trump. This man, called McElroy then
arrived in triumph in Washington, DC. So there is a
war going on between this administration and the certainly Francis,
but also now in a much more thoughtful and I
would think, much more dangerous. I mean, I think that
(06:35):
this new man, Leo, does not suffer fools. You know,
in Chicago. Yeah.
S1 (06:41):
South side.
S2 (06:42):
I think so. And he's lived in Peru. Meaning, if
you think you know what this is about, you don't.
I do. You know, all those years in working with
the poor people in Peru during a very difficult time.
S1 (06:54):
And this is so interesting to me. So I want
to know about your newfound fondness of the Vatican, or
perhaps a greater fondness for Catholicism in general. I don't know,
I'd love you to tell me, because you did write
an essay on the Ferns Report into clerical sex abuse
in the Diocese of Ferns and Wexford. So do you
forgive the Catholic Church for those abuses? What is with
this new fondness for you? It's so interesting, I know.
S2 (07:14):
I mean, I mean that that is an outstanding matter. And, uh,
for for the victims to feel that somehow not not
only are they being ignored, but as though they're being
written out of the current agenda. In other words, here
is me I'm talking all about, you know, the new
pope and his relationship with Trump. But in the meantime,
there are people who are really hurting because actually it
(07:35):
hasn't gone away for them.
S1 (07:36):
We're talking about the victims of.
S2 (07:37):
I am, I am. And I mean, in Ireland, this
is this is a really serious matter. It hasn't gone
away for them. And there are other countries where it
hasn't even begun to be investigated. And every, every single
time it's looked at, there was obviously a secret rule
the church had. Do not go to the police. We
are above civil society. We are above the law. And
(08:00):
what to do with the priest is talk to him
very severely and move him to another parish and tell
no one. And this caused untold grief. It ruined people's
lives and they still haven't come clean on. This was
what we did because it was Vatican policy. This came
from on high, you know. Stop blaming individual bishops, although
they are to blame, but actually from on high. How
(08:22):
come in no place did they go to the police?
S1 (08:26):
So tell me. So how do you reconcile that with
what is the fondness that you know, that you felt
when you were in the Vatican? Because this is what
I love about what you write, which is, of course,
what we all experience with humanity, no matter who we are,
is that life is complicated, right? You know, we all
contain hypocrisies and things that make no sense. I'm not
calling you a hypocrite, but how do you reconcile those feelings?
(08:47):
What was it that you felt in the Vatican?
S2 (08:48):
Someone. I was having lunch with someone. But they said
to me just casually, you know, a lot of people
don't leave the Vatican who live in the Vatican. It's
a tiny space, and they don't go into the Italian
state and, you know, even like the barber. I said,
hold on. I tried not to look too good. You
mean there's a barber in the Vatican for cardinals and archbishops?
And so I got up early in the morning, and
(09:09):
there it was very discreet. I mean, not a big
barber or.
S1 (09:13):
A barber.
S2 (09:13):
Plate glass.
S1 (09:13):
Window.
S2 (09:14):
But it was clearly a barber's. And you went in
and honestly, there was a cardinal having his hair shampooed. Now, see,
it's really good barber for me because I'm bald. And
every bishop, archbishop and cardinal are almost by definition bald.
I therefore therefore.
S1 (09:30):
So this was the place for you.
S2 (09:31):
Therefore, they do bold haircuts very, very well. I mean,
mine has gone a bit longer now, but but honestly,
I came out feeling for once I'm not being insulted
in the barber's. I'm not being just just barely with
a bit, a bit, a bit of. Yeah, being being shaved,
just a bit of scissors work and you're out. You know,
we do your eyebrows as a way of sort of
compensating because you have no hair. Mr..
S1 (09:51):
Then you found you.
S2 (09:52):
Found your place. I found.
S1 (09:53):
That was it.
S2 (09:54):
I found my.
S1 (09:55):
Barber.
S2 (09:55):
No, no, just the whole business of. You see, being
being a non-married gentleman, age 69.
S1 (10:01):
Yes.
S2 (10:01):
You get fond of other such fellows, even though, as
I say, some of them have been, you know, in
their lives, sort of less than ideal in the way
they functioned. And as I say, done a lot of damage.
But yeah, the comedy of things remains interesting irrespective of.
I mean, I wouldn't stretch it to Republicans in America,
(10:22):
except in Texas, where you honestly could be in a
room with Republicans, and they're just so nice and funny,
and they just, oh my God, they're all Republicans. What
am I doing here? So it's it's a problem. It's
a lack of moral character that I have moral firmness.
And I don't really know the difference between right and wrong.
S1 (10:41):
And you mean you don't know the.
S4 (10:43):
Difference between right and wrong?
S2 (10:44):
Well, I mean, if someone is Republican, they should clearly
keep away from them. They're wrong. And then you suddenly
find that you're enjoying something they're saying to you, and
you're actually going to go to dinner in their house
the next night.
S1 (10:54):
But that's the heart of why you're a writer, right?
You know, I.
S2 (10:57):
Know, but I'm not proud.
S1 (10:58):
Of it. Well, okay. Well, I want to ask you
about this because something else that you're not particularly proud of,
but it's given a gift to the world, which is
you said in an interview this is regarding, I believe,
writing Brooklyn and Long Island that you were inspired, in
a way, by your mother and her relatives. But you
said there was something disgusting about mining your memories of
them for a book. So what motivates you to.
S2 (11:18):
Know that that's a fleeting feeling sometimes. Oh, okay. And, um,
a friend of mine who was a novelist ended up
one day going to see his stepmother, about whom he'd
written several books, and he hadn't seen her for years.
She lived to be old, you know, and she looked
at him. She opened the door and looked at him
and said, there you are, still making money out of
all our foibles. And there is an idea that if
(11:41):
you have a child and you know the child must
be a soccer player, that's good. But if the child
tennis player good, but a novelist not good, because every
little thing you do and say is now open and
can now appear in print. And people say, oh, I
didn't know that you about. You know. So yes, there
was a there were a few moments when I would
put something into a book. I think that, um, with Brooklyn,
(12:05):
I had two aunts, my mother, two younger sisters, and
one of them was more powerful than the other. And
they both worked precisely in the named place where Rose
works in Brooklyn, snag, Davis and Enniscorthy. So that's in
the book. But what happens with two sisters like that is,
the second one just is much more helpless and much more,
I suppose. Um, less. Less active, less pushy. And so
(12:30):
I did use that dynamic between the two, which I
think they would both if they if they'd read the book,
they were both dead by the time it came out,
they would have immediately said, sure, that's us. Discussing is
pretty strong, but maybe in a certain moment it is.
If someone did it to me, I'd go nuts.
S1 (12:46):
Has it never happened?
S2 (12:48):
No.
S1 (12:48):
Here's what I want to ask you. Or you have
a knack with writing about emotionally hobbled people is how
I might call them. So many of your characters are,
but really the one that springs to mind is Henry
James and the master. He's unable to communicate his own feelings,
his desires to other people, though he perhaps like yourself,
call him, he does mine those right for his writing.
He certainly is very well in touch with the vulnerabilities,
(13:09):
the desires, the inconsistencies of other people. So tell me
about this emotionally hobbled people. What is their appeal for you?
S2 (13:16):
Oh, you know, the way there are people who really
tell you their feelings all the time so that if
you were if you were dating somebody and they all
the time told you their feelings, eventually they'd have to
say to me, do you have any feelings? I mean,
how do you how do you? Because you can't just say.
S1 (13:33):
Because you're the opposite. Is that what you mean?
S2 (13:34):
You are. Yeah. I would be very careful. And I
would tell a lot of jokes, and I would, as
I'm trying to do with you. And I would go
on a lot about various things. And eventually someone would
say to me, could you actually say something that you
think might be true? And you get really shocked and
you get really defensive. And of course you go, ah.
(13:56):
What do you mean? Oh, you do all that? What
do you mean, stuff? But I suppose it's a it's
just a way. I consider it a form of good
manners that you wouldn't go on about yourself and how
you feel all the time. But again, that's a defence mechanism.
S1 (14:08):
So. Do you share? I know this is usually it's
a lazy question for journalists, but it seems like it's
a logical one to ask. Now is there some similarity perhaps,
or something that you understand in Henry James at least
the way you've written him with, you know, that that fear?
I guess there's a fear really in him that you
feel when you read it to, to communicate those.
S2 (14:27):
See, this thing has come up now called fear of intimacy,
which certainly didn't exist when Henry James was going. And
I don't have that, you know. And so but is.
S1 (14:34):
There a fear to communicate with other people?
S2 (14:36):
Those really look, look, it's a really, really simple matter
that someone says to you, um, you know, I just, I,
you know, even just say, just take the phrase I
love you and you think, yeah, I'd like to say
that too. And it comes up. It's in it's in
Brooklyn where she doesn't, you know, and it's in actually,
it's in Long Island. Just that phrase, I love you.
(14:57):
I think just talking to someone as though you're in
a pop song with them.
S5 (15:01):
Love you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
S2 (15:04):
Like it's just not good enough. You have to find
another way of speaking. But then if you don't say love,
then if you don't say hold on. Are you not.
Are you, are you not saying you love me? And
then you know, but then what you really want is peace.
Could that conversation stop? And could we have it tomorrow?
I'm not say I'm not good at having this conversation
in the morning. I'm not good at having them in
the afternoon, and I'm not good at having the evening.
(15:26):
Where do you think our relationship is going? I said, well.
S1 (15:29):
Is that your nightmare? Is that, is that is that like.
S2 (15:31):
Well, I'm actually thinking of going to Saint Kilda, you know,
like I'm thinking of going to Bondi. That's where our
relationship is going. It's going to Bondi. If you're coming
with me and you know, there's a cost, but I
find how other people think about that just completely beyond me,
you know.
S1 (15:46):
As in the people that want to sort of interrogate
that and know and have it.
S2 (15:49):
Stated. I feel I feel this and I feel that
at some moments for you, I feel, I feel. Oh shut.
S5 (15:54):
Up.
S1 (16:00):
We'll be right back. Now, I wanted to ask you.
You've also written about the dangers of nationalism. You know,
I think you've written about Irish nationalism. So I'm just
wondering what you think now about the rise of nationalism
across the globe. You know, we're seeing it in Italy.
(16:20):
We're seeing it in Germany. Is it a trend that
worries you?
S2 (16:24):
Um. It's appalling. When the IRA began the campaign in
the name of the Irish nation, just say in 1971, 72,
at the beginning, it might have looked like they were
defending their people, you know, against the British Army, against
Protestants against. But slowly it realized that, no, no, they
were on the rise and that they were doing this
in the name of some spiritual thing, putting car bombs
(16:44):
in the city. And, uh, I was 17 maybe, when
I started to think about it. And I came from
a nationalist family. My grandfather was imprisoned by the British
after the 1916 rebellion. My uncle, you know. So there
was a nationalist family and we were and and I suddenly, well,
gradually and then suddenly, really over those few years began
to think this is wrong, eh? Because putting a bomb
(17:07):
in a car in a city and blowing up people
is wrong. But B the ideology that only a strange,
withered ideology could give rise to this. And what is
the ideology? And therefore I just thought the whole idea
of us, us just the word us, we Catholics or
we Irish people? Or do you hate the British? Everyone
(17:29):
in Ireland I know had a great time in England
when they went there. If you wanted to see a
band film or if you wanted to get condoms in
the 70s, you went over from Wexford to Wales and
my mother, when she was coming back from a little holiday,
would come back with a big bag of corn for
various people she knew. That's called England, you know. The
enemy suddenly becomes a great place for your mother.
S1 (17:47):
Sounds like a badass.
S2 (17:48):
So? So, in other words, a lot of, um, the
things you were brought up believing about your own nation.
S1 (17:53):
Yes.
S2 (17:53):
Just just didn't didn't seemed to me that it would
only cause further grief and didn't mean anything. So. Yeah.
I mean, what's happening? Look, this business of migrants is
is really. See, politicians are afraid to make the argument
migrants are good. They make a society. What's the best
place to live? The place where there are most migrants.
(18:16):
Now how come? And this idea of migrants as the
enemy migrants are going to take your job because you
were so busy picking apples and strawberries. That was your job.
Your children wanted to do this too. They have PhDs
in picking apples and people are stealing your picking apple job.
Give me a break. You know, you go into a
nursing home. Who's there all night? The Lithuanian nurse. Because
the Irish nurse doesn't want to do that job. And so? So.
(18:36):
But even even if people are coming at the top
level to be our doctors, our engineers, our, you know. Yeah,
it's absolutely great to have. But, you know, the better
the more migrants, the better the society. So how come
then we let these groups emerge in which and I
have to say, um, there was a man called Malcolm
Turnbull who turned our stomachs in the world by saying
that no one could ever come into Australia who would
(18:58):
come by sea illegally, and that he would never be
let in even once. There would be no lift on that.
And he got Obama to agree to take people he
was keeping on an island. But, I mean, every country
did this in one way or another. There are a
lot of deportations from Ireland. There's no point in blaming
Malcolm Turnbull, but I do. And but but I mean,
the stuff that's going on in America at the moment
and the stuff that's going on in Germany and the
(19:18):
stuff that's going on in Spain and France over these outsiders,
these strangers in our house, these migrants, these men, they're
going to take our what? Take our what? And they're
going to actually build a great society. I mean, can
you imagine Yorkshire without its Pakistani and Indian populations? What
would you eat? So like, this has to stop this
(19:40):
nonsense about migrants because it's not true. And it seems
to me very close to a demonization, for example, of
Jewish people in Germany and Poland in the 1920s and
30s anti-Semitism began with the Big Lie. And this is
an equal. I mean, obviously it's not equal. You know,
nothing in history comes twice. But nonetheless, having to listen
(20:00):
to this nonsense and watching liberal politicians being mealy mouthed
about it and saying, oh, well, we do have to watch.
You know, we have to be very careful about including
in Ireland, our migration policy. We have to limit it,
and deportations even. This man, Keir Starmer, said something so
horrible the other day he talked about he didn't want
England to be a country of strangers. Well, I think
(20:23):
I know what he means. It might mean Irish people.
He might mean people from the Caribbean. Are they strangers
in England? Yeah. You know. And so he's just looking
for votes. Cheap votes. Anyway, that's my rant on that.
S1 (20:35):
No. That's incredible. I mean, it's amazing to see you
so impassioned because. Because it's obviously something you care so
deeply about.
S2 (20:40):
If Trump didn't have this enemy, what would he be
talking about?
S1 (20:44):
It makes me wonder what you feel now, as you know,
because of course, like myself. And this is why I'm
obsessed with this. I'm from Canada and I live here.
Like so many people, of course, around the world, so
many of our listeners will be the same. They're from
one place, they're from another. I mean, Australia is a
country of migrants, of course, and you live half your
time in Los Angeles. So does that make you feel
more Irish, though? Because, you know, I know Mike Myers,
(21:05):
he's a Canadian comedian and he lives in America. And
he said, there's no one more Canadian than an expatriate Canadian.
And I definitely fall into that cliché. Is that you column?
S2 (21:15):
Are you I mean, the thing that everyone Irish recognizes
and that maybe what Canadians recognize too, is that you
go to JFK in New York and you're getting the
flight back to Dublin. Yes, it's usually around 6:00 in
the evening, which means getting to the airport is such
a nightmare. Yes. And you're so worried about getting to
the airport being late that you forget what you're going
to witness now are the Irish, and you're going to
see them and they're going to talk like you. Some
(21:36):
they're going to look like you and they're going to
behave like you, meaning that if they're pushing a cart along,
they're never sure that this is the right thing to do.
They have a slightly worried look. They don't deal well
with authority. They're afraid or they're slightly aggressive. The men,
you know, and the men have that sort of that
sort of soft eyes that you get in Irish men.
But it could be a very hard jaw.
S6 (21:57):
And what are the soft.
S1 (21:58):
Eyes telegraphing vulnerability.
S6 (21:59):
Like, what is it?
S2 (22:00):
Yeah. You're home. It's all fine. You're all. We're all
together in this space. The cabin crew are all Irish.
Still on the air Lingus flights are all Irish. So
the woman in the middle of the night, as she's
passing you by, looks at you and says. Would you
like more tea? And straight from home. It's like exactly
what they used to say to you at home. Would
you like more tea?
S6 (22:16):
No. Is this a good feeling or a bad feeling?
It's completely. When you first described it honestly. It's.
S2 (22:21):
It is. It is frighteningly good. You know, suddenly you
realise all this stuff. I've been dealing with all these Americans,
and they're like their voices and their driving. Driving the
wrong side of the road. And they're like. They're just constant.
Like being being being American. It's so you can breathe
and you don't. You realise the amount of pressure you've
been under before and you're underplaying. It doesn't last, by
(22:43):
the way. It's quite a false piece of elation, but
it's real and everybody knows it. But it doesn't last.
S1 (22:51):
It makes me wonder whether you have been thinking about
people who are exiled from their homes or threatened with exile.
You know, whether it's people in Ukraine or Gaza. Is
this something that you've been thinking much about?
S2 (23:02):
I mean, I think part of the impulse behind Brooklyn was,
was to show what it's like to have to move
for economic reasons, in this case, to another country. The
initial loneliness, the strangeness, the homesickness, the sort of wrong
decisions made. And so, so that idea that migration itself
is not something you do in order to take things
from people. It brings its own pain. I think all
(23:22):
of us who come from societies where we can have
passports and where we can easily move from one place
to another, have to be aware that all around us
are now people who are moving for really good reasons,
and the idea that we're prejudiced against them or we're
blaming them for something or we're demonizing them is really horrible,
especially since we ourselves are so privileged.
S1 (23:41):
Colm, it's been an absolute pleasure having you here.
S2 (23:44):
Thank you very much. Thank you.
S1 (23:45):
Thank you. Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced
by myself and Josh towers, with technical assistance by Bella
Anne Sanchez. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. Tom McKendrick
(24:08):
is our head of audio. To listen to our episodes
as soon as they drop, follow the Morning Edition on Apple, Spotify,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. Our newsrooms are powered
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(24:28):
up to our Morning Edition newsletter to receive a summary
of the day's most important news in your inbox every morning.
Links are in the show. Notes. I'm Samantha Selinger. Morris.
Thanks for listening.
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is the morning edition. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris. It's Monday,
May 26th. Colm Toibin is quite simply, one of the
most revered writers in modern literature. As one of his
fellow authors once put of Toibin, who has been shortlisted
(00:25):
for the Booker Prize multiple times, he's there when the
thorn enters the skin. And so he is his international
best selling novel. Brooklyn takes us inside the mind of
Eilis Lacey, a meek young woman who is pushed by
her family against her own wishes to emigrate from a
small Irish town to the United States in the 1950s.
(00:47):
Prepared only by a family of women who, as Tobin writes,
could do everything except say out loud what it was
they were thinking. The book later became a hit movie
starring Saoirse Ronan, who won plaudits for playing out the
agonies of trying to adapt to the customs of a
strange new land. When we meet Eilish 20 years later
(01:08):
in Tobin's latest novel, Long Island, she again feels the
pull of Ireland after she discovers that her American husband
has fathered a child with another woman. So what does Tobin,
who has lived in Barcelona, Los Angeles, New York and
Dublin make of our yearning to belong and how it
can twist us internally? How it can drive otherwise rational
(01:32):
people to dam entire groups of people. Today, Colm Toibin,
who is in Australia for the Sydney Writers Festival and
the Melbourne Writers Festival, gives his insights into Gaza, Donald
Trump and the new pope and the times when even
he can't find the right words in his own life. So, Callum,
(01:57):
the first thing I really want to ask you about
is the issue of belonging. It's something I'm super passionate
about myself and so many of the main characters in
your book struggle with this. Like where do they belong?
Is this something that comes from a personal struggle? Like,
do you struggle with this feeling?
S2 (02:12):
You see, I think it comes from a real rootedness
that some of the characters also feel. In other words,
that you're from a town. I'm from Enniscorthy, County Wexford.
My parents were born there. My grandparents were born there.
And things go back further than that if you bothered
to investigate. My father was a teacher and my two
sisters were teachers. So that meant that we had a
(02:33):
relationship with the town. And that's where I'm from. And
therefore it means that either you make a decision early
on in your life, and it's about sensibility, that there
are a lot of people I know who just wanted
to stay in the town, love the rhythms of it,
love the years going by, just love the next generation coming.
And then there are people like me who just looked
at the main road very, very carefully at a very
(02:56):
young age and loved the train going to Dublin if
anyone was going anywhere, if a circus came, you know,
like if a, you know, if a missionary came saying,
Come to Africa and join the missions, I would go
have gone anywhere and I'm still like that.
S1 (03:11):
And so tell me, I mean, is any of that
rooted in the fact that you're a gay man who
grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in Ireland? I
can't imagine that might have been necessarily the easiest place
to be with the Catholic Church ruling so much there.
Is any of that related?
S2 (03:25):
Um, I don't think so. I mean, even when you
say you're gay, man, I wonder who are you talking about?
Because of course, you spent your time thinking you were
not gay. You just preferred blokes, you know? In other words,
the identity tag came later, and it would have been
so afraid if someone had said you were any. You're
a queer or anything, but you felt I'm not a queer.
(03:46):
I just like blokes. Um, the Catholic Church wasn't the
problem as much as the general society where this thing
was unmentionable. It wasn't really that it was illegal. Of
course it was illegal. But it wasn't just illegal. Legal.
No one said anything about it, so it didn't really
oppress you in any way that was obvious to you.
It oppressed you in ways that were much more serious
(04:06):
because it was all about silences. It was all about
that strange oppression. Where do not mention this. And then
later on don't tell so and so and oh my God,
what will so-and-so think? And and then everyone got over it.
I mean, what's really irritating in a way, is that
everybody got over it, and you wonder why they couldn't
have got over it a generation earlier, since they're so
easy now about it. And, you know, it's really fashionable
(04:27):
to be queer. And people's grannies love them because they're queer.
Why didn't their grannies try that out, like when in 1962?
S1 (04:34):
Or why had that never been a problem to begin with?
S2 (04:36):
Yeah, that would be. Yeah. Exactly why that.
S1 (04:38):
Would be.
S2 (04:38):
More ideal. Yeah, yeah. But, um, oddly enough, the church
is not the problem. The church is on the run,
you know, and we have them on the run. And
I like this new pope. I just think he's, um. Well,
he's the same age as me, and I like anyone
who's the same age as me, but I, um, he's
I think he's a quiet, spoken, thoughtful person. And in politics,
that would be such a relief. After some of the
(05:00):
noise we've been hearing from some of the buffoons. I
won't name him.
S1 (05:04):
Well, you not know.
S2 (05:06):
But he's called Donald Trump.
S1 (05:07):
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Well,
I wanted to ask you about the new pope because
you have actually written a lot about Catholicism. You wrote
a travel book, The Sign of the cross Travels in
Catholic Europe. You wrote a play about the Virgin Mary,
but then you also once wrote in an essay, one
of the purposes of literature, as Joyce made clear, is
to put religion in its place. So where would you
(05:28):
put religion if you could?
S3 (05:30):
And I don't know.
S2 (05:32):
And I was in the Vatican recently, and I realized
that I'd been growing fond of the place, and I'd
been growing very tolerant about Holy Mother and the one
true religion and the I suppose it has to do
now with the fact that in America, the only voice
of sanity now would be something like the bishop of,
(05:52):
you know, Trump really had it in for Pope Francis
and he in December just before he was inaugurated, he
appointed an ambassador to the Vatican, who really had written
against France and almost railed against Francis and Francis in retaliation,
in January of this year appointed a new Cardinal Archbishop
(06:12):
of Washington, D.C., who was in San Diego. And just
before he left San Diego in January, he led a
march of migrants against Trump. This man, called McElroy then
arrived in triumph in Washington, DC. So there is a
war going on between this administration and the certainly Francis,
but also now in a much more thoughtful and I
would think, much more dangerous. I mean, I think that
(06:35):
this new man, Leo, does not suffer fools. You know,
in Chicago. Yeah.
S1 (06:41):
South side.
S2 (06:42):
I think so. And he's lived in Peru. Meaning, if
you think you know what this is about, you don't.
I do. You know, all those years in working with
the poor people in Peru during a very difficult time.
S1 (06:54):
And this is so interesting to me. So I want
to know about your newfound fondness of the Vatican, or
perhaps a greater fondness for Catholicism in general. I don't know,
I'd love you to tell me, because you did write
an essay on the Ferns Report into clerical sex abuse
in the Diocese of Ferns and Wexford. So do you
forgive the Catholic Church for those abuses? What is with
this new fondness for you? It's so interesting, I know.
S2 (07:14):
I mean, I mean that that is an outstanding matter. And, uh,
for for the victims to feel that somehow not not
only are they being ignored, but as though they're being
written out of the current agenda. In other words, here
is me I'm talking all about, you know, the new
pope and his relationship with Trump. But in the meantime,
there are people who are really hurting because actually it
(07:35):
hasn't gone away for them.
S1 (07:36):
We're talking about the victims of.
S2 (07:37):
I am, I am. And I mean, in Ireland, this
is this is a really serious matter. It hasn't gone
away for them. And there are other countries where it
hasn't even begun to be investigated. And every, every single
time it's looked at, there was obviously a secret rule
the church had. Do not go to the police. We
are above civil society. We are above the law. And
(08:00):
what to do with the priest is talk to him
very severely and move him to another parish and tell
no one. And this caused untold grief. It ruined people's
lives and they still haven't come clean on. This was
what we did because it was Vatican policy. This came
from on high, you know. Stop blaming individual bishops, although
they are to blame, but actually from on high. How
(08:22):
come in no place did they go to the police?
S1 (08:26):
So tell me. So how do you reconcile that with
what is the fondness that you know, that you felt
when you were in the Vatican? Because this is what
I love about what you write, which is, of course,
what we all experience with humanity, no matter who we are,
is that life is complicated, right? You know, we all
contain hypocrisies and things that make no sense. I'm not
calling you a hypocrite, but how do you reconcile those feelings?
(08:47):
What was it that you felt in the Vatican?
S2 (08:48):
Someone. I was having lunch with someone. But they said
to me just casually, you know, a lot of people
don't leave the Vatican who live in the Vatican. It's
a tiny space, and they don't go into the Italian
state and, you know, even like the barber. I said,
hold on. I tried not to look too good. You
mean there's a barber in the Vatican for cardinals and archbishops?
And so I got up early in the morning, and
(09:09):
there it was very discreet. I mean, not a big
barber or.
S1 (09:13):
A barber.
S2 (09:13):
Plate glass.
S1 (09:13):
Window.
S2 (09:14):
But it was clearly a barber's. And you went in
and honestly, there was a cardinal having his hair shampooed. Now, see,
it's really good barber for me because I'm bald. And
every bishop, archbishop and cardinal are almost by definition bald.
I therefore therefore.
S1 (09:30):
So this was the place for you.
S2 (09:31):
Therefore, they do bold haircuts very, very well. I mean,
mine has gone a bit longer now, but but honestly,
I came out feeling for once I'm not being insulted
in the barber's. I'm not being just just barely with
a bit, a bit, a bit of. Yeah, being being shaved,
just a bit of scissors work and you're out. You know,
we do your eyebrows as a way of sort of
compensating because you have no hair. Mr..
S1 (09:51):
Then you found you.
S2 (09:52):
Found your place. I found.
S1 (09:53):
That was it.
S2 (09:54):
I found my.
S1 (09:55):
Barber.
S2 (09:55):
No, no, just the whole business of. You see, being
being a non-married gentleman, age 69.
S1 (10:01):
Yes.
S2 (10:01):
You get fond of other such fellows, even though, as
I say, some of them have been, you know, in
their lives, sort of less than ideal in the way
they functioned. And as I say, done a lot of damage.
But yeah, the comedy of things remains interesting irrespective of.
I mean, I wouldn't stretch it to Republicans in America,
(10:22):
except in Texas, where you honestly could be in a
room with Republicans, and they're just so nice and funny,
and they just, oh my God, they're all Republicans. What
am I doing here? So it's it's a problem. It's
a lack of moral character that I have moral firmness.
And I don't really know the difference between right and wrong.
S1 (10:41):
And you mean you don't know the.
S4 (10:43):
Difference between right and wrong?
S2 (10:44):
Well, I mean, if someone is Republican, they should clearly
keep away from them. They're wrong. And then you suddenly
find that you're enjoying something they're saying to you, and
you're actually going to go to dinner in their house
the next night.
S1 (10:54):
But that's the heart of why you're a writer, right?
You know, I.
S2 (10:57):
Know, but I'm not proud.
S1 (10:58):
Of it. Well, okay. Well, I want to ask you
about this because something else that you're not particularly proud of,
but it's given a gift to the world, which is
you said in an interview this is regarding, I believe,
writing Brooklyn and Long Island that you were inspired, in
a way, by your mother and her relatives. But you
said there was something disgusting about mining your memories of
them for a book. So what motivates you to.
S2 (11:18):
Know that that's a fleeting feeling sometimes. Oh, okay. And, um,
a friend of mine who was a novelist ended up
one day going to see his stepmother, about whom he'd
written several books, and he hadn't seen her for years.
She lived to be old, you know, and she looked
at him. She opened the door and looked at him
and said, there you are, still making money out of
all our foibles. And there is an idea that if
(11:41):
you have a child and you know the child must
be a soccer player, that's good. But if the child
tennis player good, but a novelist not good, because every
little thing you do and say is now open and
can now appear in print. And people say, oh, I
didn't know that you about. You know. So yes, there
was a there were a few moments when I would
put something into a book. I think that, um, with Brooklyn,
(12:05):
I had two aunts, my mother, two younger sisters, and
one of them was more powerful than the other. And
they both worked precisely in the named place where Rose
works in Brooklyn, snag, Davis and Enniscorthy. So that's in
the book. But what happens with two sisters like that is,
the second one just is much more helpless and much more,
I suppose. Um, less. Less active, less pushy. And so
(12:30):
I did use that dynamic between the two, which I
think they would both if they if they'd read the book,
they were both dead by the time it came out,
they would have immediately said, sure, that's us. Discussing is
pretty strong, but maybe in a certain moment it is.
If someone did it to me, I'd go nuts.
S1 (12:46):
Has it never happened?
S2 (12:48):
No.
S1 (12:48):
Here's what I want to ask you. Or you have
a knack with writing about emotionally hobbled people is how
I might call them. So many of your characters are,
but really the one that springs to mind is Henry
James and the master. He's unable to communicate his own feelings,
his desires to other people, though he perhaps like yourself,
call him, he does mine those right for his writing.
He certainly is very well in touch with the vulnerabilities,
(13:09):
the desires, the inconsistencies of other people. So tell me
about this emotionally hobbled people. What is their appeal for you?
S2 (13:16):
Oh, you know, the way there are people who really
tell you their feelings all the time so that if
you were if you were dating somebody and they all
the time told you their feelings, eventually they'd have to
say to me, do you have any feelings? I mean,
how do you how do you? Because you can't just say.
S1 (13:33):
Because you're the opposite. Is that what you mean?
S2 (13:34):
You are. Yeah. I would be very careful. And I
would tell a lot of jokes, and I would, as
I'm trying to do with you. And I would go
on a lot about various things. And eventually someone would
say to me, could you actually say something that you
think might be true? And you get really shocked and
you get really defensive. And of course you go, ah.
(13:56):
What do you mean? Oh, you do all that? What
do you mean, stuff? But I suppose it's a it's
just a way. I consider it a form of good
manners that you wouldn't go on about yourself and how
you feel all the time. But again, that's a defence mechanism.
S1 (14:08):
So. Do you share? I know this is usually it's
a lazy question for journalists, but it seems like it's
a logical one to ask. Now is there some similarity perhaps,
or something that you understand in Henry James at least
the way you've written him with, you know, that that fear?
I guess there's a fear really in him that you
feel when you read it to, to communicate those.
S2 (14:27):
See, this thing has come up now called fear of intimacy,
which certainly didn't exist when Henry James was going. And
I don't have that, you know. And so but is.
S1 (14:34):
There a fear to communicate with other people?
S2 (14:36):
Those really look, look, it's a really, really simple matter
that someone says to you, um, you know, I just, I,
you know, even just say, just take the phrase I
love you and you think, yeah, I'd like to say
that too. And it comes up. It's in it's in
Brooklyn where she doesn't, you know, and it's in actually,
it's in Long Island. Just that phrase, I love you.
(14:57):
I think just talking to someone as though you're in
a pop song with them.
S5 (15:01):
Love you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
S2 (15:04):
Like it's just not good enough. You have to find
another way of speaking. But then if you don't say love,
then if you don't say hold on. Are you not.
Are you, are you not saying you love me? And
then you know, but then what you really want is peace.
Could that conversation stop? And could we have it tomorrow?
I'm not say I'm not good at having this conversation
in the morning. I'm not good at having them in
the afternoon, and I'm not good at having the evening.
(15:26):
Where do you think our relationship is going? I said, well.
S1 (15:29):
Is that your nightmare? Is that, is that is that like.
S2 (15:31):
Well, I'm actually thinking of going to Saint Kilda, you know,
like I'm thinking of going to Bondi. That's where our
relationship is going. It's going to Bondi. If you're coming
with me and you know, there's a cost, but I
find how other people think about that just completely beyond me,
you know.
S1 (15:46):
As in the people that want to sort of interrogate
that and know and have it.
S2 (15:49):
Stated. I feel I feel this and I feel that
at some moments for you, I feel, I feel. Oh shut.
S5 (15:54):
Up.
S1 (16:00):
We'll be right back. Now, I wanted to ask you.
You've also written about the dangers of nationalism. You know,
I think you've written about Irish nationalism. So I'm just
wondering what you think now about the rise of nationalism
across the globe. You know, we're seeing it in Italy.
(16:20):
We're seeing it in Germany. Is it a trend that
worries you?
S2 (16:24):
Um. It's appalling. When the IRA began the campaign in
the name of the Irish nation, just say in 1971, 72,
at the beginning, it might have looked like they were
defending their people, you know, against the British Army, against
Protestants against. But slowly it realized that, no, no, they
were on the rise and that they were doing this
in the name of some spiritual thing, putting car bombs
(16:44):
in the city. And, uh, I was 17 maybe, when
I started to think about it. And I came from
a nationalist family. My grandfather was imprisoned by the British
after the 1916 rebellion. My uncle, you know. So there
was a nationalist family and we were and and I suddenly, well,
gradually and then suddenly, really over those few years began
to think this is wrong, eh? Because putting a bomb
(17:07):
in a car in a city and blowing up people
is wrong. But B the ideology that only a strange,
withered ideology could give rise to this. And what is
the ideology? And therefore I just thought the whole idea
of us, us just the word us, we Catholics or
we Irish people? Or do you hate the British? Everyone
(17:29):
in Ireland I know had a great time in England
when they went there. If you wanted to see a
band film or if you wanted to get condoms in
the 70s, you went over from Wexford to Wales and
my mother, when she was coming back from a little holiday,
would come back with a big bag of corn for
various people she knew. That's called England, you know. The
enemy suddenly becomes a great place for your mother.
S1 (17:47):
Sounds like a badass.
S2 (17:48):
So? So, in other words, a lot of, um, the
things you were brought up believing about your own nation.
S1 (17:53):
Yes.
S2 (17:53):
Just just didn't didn't seemed to me that it would
only cause further grief and didn't mean anything. So. Yeah.
I mean, what's happening? Look, this business of migrants is
is really. See, politicians are afraid to make the argument
migrants are good. They make a society. What's the best
place to live? The place where there are most migrants.
(18:16):
Now how come? And this idea of migrants as the
enemy migrants are going to take your job because you
were so busy picking apples and strawberries. That was your job.
Your children wanted to do this too. They have PhDs
in picking apples and people are stealing your picking apple job.
Give me a break. You know, you go into a
nursing home. Who's there all night? The Lithuanian nurse. Because
the Irish nurse doesn't want to do that job. And so? So.
(18:36):
But even even if people are coming at the top
level to be our doctors, our engineers, our, you know. Yeah,
it's absolutely great to have. But, you know, the better
the more migrants, the better the society. So how come
then we let these groups emerge in which and I
have to say, um, there was a man called Malcolm
Turnbull who turned our stomachs in the world by saying
that no one could ever come into Australia who would
(18:58):
come by sea illegally, and that he would never be
let in even once. There would be no lift on that.
And he got Obama to agree to take people he
was keeping on an island. But, I mean, every country
did this in one way or another. There are a
lot of deportations from Ireland. There's no point in blaming
Malcolm Turnbull, but I do. And but but I mean,
the stuff that's going on in America at the moment
and the stuff that's going on in Germany and the
(19:18):
stuff that's going on in Spain and France over these outsiders,
these strangers in our house, these migrants, these men, they're
going to take our what? Take our what? And they're
going to actually build a great society. I mean, can
you imagine Yorkshire without its Pakistani and Indian populations? What
would you eat? So like, this has to stop this
(19:40):
nonsense about migrants because it's not true. And it seems
to me very close to a demonization, for example, of
Jewish people in Germany and Poland in the 1920s and
30s anti-Semitism began with the Big Lie. And this is
an equal. I mean, obviously it's not equal. You know,
nothing in history comes twice. But nonetheless, having to listen
(20:00):
to this nonsense and watching liberal politicians being mealy mouthed
about it and saying, oh, well, we do have to watch.
You know, we have to be very careful about including
in Ireland, our migration policy. We have to limit it,
and deportations even. This man, Keir Starmer, said something so
horrible the other day he talked about he didn't want
England to be a country of strangers. Well, I think
(20:23):
I know what he means. It might mean Irish people.
He might mean people from the Caribbean. Are they strangers
in England? Yeah. You know. And so he's just looking
for votes. Cheap votes. Anyway, that's my rant on that.
S1 (20:35):
No. That's incredible. I mean, it's amazing to see you
so impassioned because. Because it's obviously something you care so
deeply about.
S2 (20:40):
If Trump didn't have this enemy, what would he be
talking about?
S1 (20:44):
It makes me wonder what you feel now, as you know,
because of course, like myself. And this is why I'm
obsessed with this. I'm from Canada and I live here.
Like so many people, of course, around the world, so
many of our listeners will be the same. They're from
one place, they're from another. I mean, Australia is a
country of migrants, of course, and you live half your
time in Los Angeles. So does that make you feel
more Irish, though? Because, you know, I know Mike Myers,
(21:05):
he's a Canadian comedian and he lives in America. And
he said, there's no one more Canadian than an expatriate Canadian.
And I definitely fall into that cliché. Is that you column?
S2 (21:15):
Are you I mean, the thing that everyone Irish recognizes
and that maybe what Canadians recognize too, is that you
go to JFK in New York and you're getting the
flight back to Dublin. Yes, it's usually around 6:00 in
the evening, which means getting to the airport is such
a nightmare. Yes. And you're so worried about getting to
the airport being late that you forget what you're going
to witness now are the Irish, and you're going to
see them and they're going to talk like you. Some
(21:36):
they're going to look like you and they're going to
behave like you, meaning that if they're pushing a cart along,
they're never sure that this is the right thing to do.
They have a slightly worried look. They don't deal well
with authority. They're afraid or they're slightly aggressive. The men,
you know, and the men have that sort of that
sort of soft eyes that you get in Irish men.
But it could be a very hard jaw.
S6 (21:57):
And what are the soft.
S1 (21:58):
Eyes telegraphing vulnerability.
S6 (21:59):
Like, what is it?
S2 (22:00):
Yeah. You're home. It's all fine. You're all. We're all
together in this space. The cabin crew are all Irish.
Still on the air Lingus flights are all Irish. So
the woman in the middle of the night, as she's
passing you by, looks at you and says. Would you
like more tea? And straight from home. It's like exactly
what they used to say to you at home. Would
you like more tea?
S6 (22:16):
No. Is this a good feeling or a bad feeling?
It's completely. When you first described it honestly. It's.
S2 (22:21):
It is. It is frighteningly good. You know, suddenly you
realise all this stuff. I've been dealing with all these Americans,
and they're like their voices and their driving. Driving the
wrong side of the road. And they're like. They're just constant.
Like being being being American. It's so you can breathe
and you don't. You realise the amount of pressure you've
been under before and you're underplaying. It doesn't last, by
(22:43):
the way. It's quite a false piece of elation, but
it's real and everybody knows it. But it doesn't last.
S1 (22:51):
It makes me wonder whether you have been thinking about
people who are exiled from their homes or threatened with exile.
You know, whether it's people in Ukraine or Gaza. Is
this something that you've been thinking much about?
S2 (23:02):
I mean, I think part of the impulse behind Brooklyn was,
was to show what it's like to have to move
for economic reasons, in this case, to another country. The
initial loneliness, the strangeness, the homesickness, the sort of wrong
decisions made. And so, so that idea that migration itself
is not something you do in order to take things
from people. It brings its own pain. I think all
(23:22):
of us who come from societies where we can have
passports and where we can easily move from one place
to another, have to be aware that all around us
are now people who are moving for really good reasons,
and the idea that we're prejudiced against them or we're
blaming them for something or we're demonizing them is really horrible,
especially since we ourselves are so privileged.
S1 (23:41):
Colm, it's been an absolute pleasure having you here.
S2 (23:44):
Thank you very much. Thank you.
S1 (23:45):
Thank you. Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced
by myself and Josh towers, with technical assistance by Bella
Anne Sanchez. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. Tom McKendrick
(24:08):
is our head of audio. To listen to our episodes
as soon as they drop, follow the Morning Edition on Apple, Spotify,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. Our newsrooms are powered
by subscriptions, so to support independent journalism, visit The Age
or smh.com.au. Subscribe and to stay up to date, sign
(24:28):
up to our Morning Edition newsletter to receive a summary
of the day's most important news in your inbox every morning.
Links are in the show. Notes. I'm Samantha Selinger. Morris.
Thanks for listening.
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