A: The title The Walking People is the English translation of An Lucht Siuil (literally, the people of walking). In Irish, this phrase references one group: Irish travellers. Depending on the dialect and the section of the country, sometimes the Irish phrase for traveller is slightly different. Many Irish and Irish Americans still refer to travellers with the derogative term: tinker. Although the novel is not strictly about travellers in the Irish sense (with the exception of Michael Ward, who leaves the life behind), it is about travelers in the larger sense; no matter how long Greta and Michael stay in America, like all immigrants they began somewhere else.
Q: What sort of research did you have to do to write The Walking People?
A: I read as much as I could find – particularly about emigration in the 1950s and 1960s. I also read about the electrification of Ireland’s rural areas and about travellers. Although I’d been to Ireland a number of times growing up, I took one formal research trip to Galway and to the National Library in Dublin over one Christmas toward the beginning of the process. On the American side, I went down into a New York City water tunnel so I could get a more vivid sense of what Michael’s days looked like. My father worked as a sandhog for thirty-one years, but seeing the tunnel in person added an extra dimension to what I’d imagined.
Q: How long did it take to write The Walking People?
A: The actual typing took roughly two years, but I’d been thinking about these characters for far longer. Greta, in particular, was someone I felt I knew quite well by the time I began writing, and in fact, the first draft attempt was written in the first person from Greta’s point of view. I got to around page 150 and realized I wanted to hear from other characters in this world, and so I switched it to a multiple third person point of view, with Greta’s as the most prominent voice. This was a difficult choice as it meant scrapping many months worth of work. However, once I made the switch and started over again the world of the Cahill women and Michael Ward felt fuller and more natural.
