PATRICK Holloway is known for many things: as an Irish writer of short fiction and poetry; as the editor of the Cork literary journal, The Four Faced Liar: and now as an author of his first published novel The Language of Remembering, due to hit our shelves in 2025 with Epoque Press.
The Cork writer has garnered considerable praise in the lead up to this much-anticipated debut. He is the winner of the Bath Short Story Award, The Molly Keane Creative Writing Prize, The Flash 500 Prize, the Allingham Fiction contest, and he was the recipient of the Paul McVeigh Residency in 2023.
Irish Writing
Patrick is enthusiastic about being a writer and editor in Cork and is deeply immersed in the literary world of Ireland.
“I am so inspired by Irish writers. The local scene is amazing too,” he said. “There is a genuine love and respect there, and a desire to see people succeed. We were so happy to start the Four Faced Liars because we knew there was another space for a literary journal, and one that pays writers.
That recognition is important.
“We have lovely relationships with other journals like Banshee, and Howl, another great Cork-based journal. It is wonderful.”
Patrick is an avid reader and mentions many Irish names in his list: Donal Ryan, Claire Kilroy, and the woman he refers to as the ‘holy grail’: Anne Enright.
“There is so much good writing out there. When I read work in journals from writers who have yet to publish their first novel, I’m blown away. It will happen for them too.
“Book shops are doing an incredible job of supporting them. Waterstones in Cork is great and there are also small independent shops like Books Upstairs in Dublin or No Alibis in Belfast; they are phenomenal.”
Individuals in Cork have also shaped Patrick’s career.
“I was very lucky when I was younger to do lots of Speech and Drama. Eileen McCollum was my teacher and friend and sometimes guardian. She has been a huge influence in my love of the written word.
I became obsessed with poetry, and she nourished that.
“I also had an amazing English teacher, Collette Murphy. I was a terrible student, but she really pushed me. You could see she really loved what I she was doing.”
![Patrick Holloway. Patrick Holloway.](https://www.todaysauthormagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/4191280_1_articleinlinemobile_unnamed_282_29_281_29.jpg)
Epoque Press
Holloway, published in Ireland’s most prestigious journals, is happy to be with Epoque, an independent UK publisher, with ties to Ireland and America.
“I didn’t know too much about them. When I won the 2023 Paul McVeigh residency, I met lots of writers and this publisher came up a few times. I got an agent when I was living in Brazil, back in 2020. Eleanor Byrne also represents Louise Kennedy. Louise and I kept on being published together and I always loved her stories. So, when I saw she was represented by Eleanor, I messaged her and asked her to read some stories and the first pages of a novel. She asked for more and it went from there.”
Patrick was working on a different novel at that time. It got picked up by Harper Collins but for various reasons, the deal fell through. So, The Language of Remembering has more than earned its place in book shops, and its author is delighted with both his agent and his publisher.
“Eleanor has a brilliant eye. She doesn’t impose and is very respectful of you as the writer. This novel started as a short story. In fact, it was the story that won the Bath Short Story award last year.
The voice just didn’t leave me.
Listening to Patrick, it’s clear why. The story sounds like an absolutely fascinating one.
The Novel
“There are two narrators in the novel,” he continues. “The first narrator is written in second person. So that’s the ‘you’ form. That voice is a son who is taking an evening class in Irish. His mum had early onset Alzheimer’s, and she has started speaking Irish again. The son wants to connect with her.”
The novel will have a natural draw for Cork readers as it is set where Patrick grew up, in the coastal town of Crosshaven. Place plays a big role in the story and there are mentions of Carrigaline and Cork city throughout. Language also features, how it creates or contributes to identity.
“The story grew arms and legs. Oisin, that’s the son, moves back from Brazil to Ireland to take care of his mother. In doing so he has a reverse culture shock to Ireland. There is past trauma that he’s never dealt with, whilst on this excavation of language.”
The second voice, Patrick explains, is the voice of his mother Brigid, but she is situated in the past, in 1970s Ireland. She is pregnant with Oisin.
“She is a teenager who gets pregnant out of wedlock. There are a lot of late 1970s cultural references. It’s a close third person narrative. Her narrative deals with her loss of identity. Her mother Kathleen is a brilliant character too. She’s a bigger character than I expected.“
Language has a substantial impact on young Brigid.
“Her mother loves language and has these expressive phrases. Her father speaks Irish to her. The narrative follows her loss of identity when she becomes pregnant. She wants to be a female lecturer in Maynooth. She feels shame for being pregnant. Her narrative follows nine months of pregnancy and ends with the birth of Oisin.”
Oisin’s narrative seems to encompass a great deal.
“He’s tiring of dealing with his mother’s early onset and feels like he’s failing.
Being back in Ireland there are resurfacing memories.
“He is also managing his wife and young daughter. It is about the re-discovery of home. The novel questions what home is, how we define it.”
Patrick is clear that this is not an autobiographical text but is rather a work of fiction.
“Like with any writer, there are parts that are drawn from my life. I wanted the three languages in there: English, Irish and Portuguese. Having lived in Brazil, I am fluent in Portuguese.
“I also include things like trying to get a mortgage having returned to Ireland, so snippets of my life have been incorporated.”
Patrick also completed plenty of research to get the story right.
“I researched Alzheimer’s, especially in terms of what’s required of the carer. And the story is all wrapped up in language and identity. When you change your language, how does your identity evolve?”
Patrick holds a PhD in this area and has spent years considering and studying the relationships between language and identity.
He jokes that the book isn’t all seriousness, all doom and gloom.
“It’s heavy with love and redemption. It is a story about finding love, love resurfacing, using it to build a family and create a home. It also considers language as distancing.
All the characters struggle to find the words to say what they mean or what they are feeling. We all experience that.
“When my editor asked me for the acknowledgement page, I found it so difficult. Where are the words to do it? Language so often fails us.”
Thankfully for us, the limits of language are unlikely to deter Patrick Holloway from his writing. I suspect he has a lot more to say.