Ros na Rún actor's book tells tales of a Navan brothel
Domhnall O’Donoghue tells about the inspiration for his second novel, Colin and the Concubine
Acting may be Domhnall O’Donoghue’s first love but he has many more strings to his bow.
O’Donoghue has just wrapped filming for this season’s series of the TG4 soap Ros na Rún, in which he plays Pádraig Ó Loinsigh, and is in Venice when we speak — “one of the great things about having an Italian boyfriend is that I get to come over here very frequently,” he laughs.
O’Donoghue is enjoying some downtime ahead of the publication of his second novel, Colin and the Concubine. As well as being an actor and novelist, he also has a sideline in journalism.
He tells me how such diversification has always been part of an artist’s life, something which particularly struck him on his Italian trip.
“I was just in Milan, where they are celebrating the 500-year anniversary of Leonardo Da Vinci’s death — not that I’m comparing myself to Da Vinci — but the tour guide told us this story that really resonated with me.
“I didn’t know Da Vinci was credited with having written the first resumé/CV. He came to Milan from Florence where there was no work for him. He needed to earn money and at the time, the Duke, Ludovico [Sforza] was really interested in warcraft and architecture.
“In Da Vinci’s resumé, he listed all the things he could do and very last on that list was painting.
“I thought it was extraordinary, this idea that he had the wherewithal to go ‘ok, obviously painting is my thing, but the person who will pay me is interested in other things so I will present myself as someone who can help him with that’.
“Artists are always being asked to diversify, to upskill, to adapt because the thing about acting is, no matter how busy and successful you are, there is just not enough employment. You are always going to have to find different ways of earning a crust.”
It's usually midwives who deliver babies but, today, it was the postman who delivered mine 😁 After gestating for two long years, it's so good to finally cradle you in my arms ❤
— Domhnall O'Donoghue (@Domhnall1982) January 18, 2019
@IrishPublisher @LBMActors @RosnaRun pic.twitter.com/vATv6DwtXk
Initially, O’Donoghue, 36, thought that screenwriting would make the ideal companion career to acting. However, he soon realised getting a script on to the screen was going to be tougher than he thought.
“The reason I ventured into screenwriting was because I thought anything must be easier than acting, then you become a screenwriter and you realise how difficult it is. It makes sense because essentially you are asking a network, a production company or a film board to give you a few million quid. I got very frustrated because I had allocated six or seven years of life to writing these scripts.
I decided to write a book because it costs nothing, all you need is your imagination, and discipline. Then I discovered I loved it.
Colin and the Concubine is a comic tale of sibling rivalry set against the backdrop of a brothel in the Meath town of Navan in the 1990s. While O’Donoghue grew up in Navan in the 1990s, he is keen to assure me that the inspiration for the brothel in the book came from his time living in Dublin.
“I make sure everyone in Navan knows it’s a fictional brothel, that I’m not implying that we’re all sex-mad in Navan. We were actually sandwiched between two brothels in Dublin.
“I had thought I was very worldly and that I cotton on to things quite quickly but it took me ages to realise what was going on. I just thought the neighbours were hosting a lot of friends every evening and I thought ‘fair play to them’ but then I slowly realised what was happening when I saw the profile of ‘friend’ that was calling.
“I deal with it in a light-hearted way in the book but in reality, it is such an extraordinary situation that we are still ignoring.”
O’Donoghue’s role in Ros na Rún has allowed him achieve the perfect balance in terms of his career and interests, he says.
Sin é an stuff ag an leiciméir sin! 😂 pic.twitter.com/qr8G46XYk0
— Ros na Rún TG4 (@RosnaRun) February 12, 2019
“We were speaking Irish at home from the age of three and we all went to the gaelscoil in Navan. I thank my parents for that because I have a career as an actor in English and a career as an actor in Irish. It is so wonderful that I can do that.
“With a soap, it is such a luxury as an actor to be in front of a camera for six months and to be paid for six months. I also get to live in Connemara for six months of the year, and I have so much time in the evenings and at weekends to write. It works out perfectly .”
