War reporter Clár turns over new leaf with first novel

Lifestyle – Judy Murphy talks to journalist Clár Ní Chonghaile about a career reporting from Africa and the book it sparked

I knew it would be a slightly difficult read for some people,” says Spiddal journalist Clár Ní Chonghaile about her debut novel Fractured. Set in Somalia, Fractured is the story of journalist Peter Maguire, kidnapped by bandits and handed over to Islam extremist group Al Shabaab.

It’s difficult to categorise in any genre, but thriller comes closest, says Clár, who has worked in Africa for over a decade, covering wars and famine in places from the Ivory Coast to Somalia.

The novel is narrated by three different characters – Peter, his mother, Nina, and Abdi, a Somali teenager who is working for Peter’s captors – as it explores their lives and their changing relationships.

Now living in London, Clár is home in Spiddal with her daughters Lucy (12 in March) and Rachel (9), while her husband, David, also a journalist, is visiting his family in the UK.

Fractured arose from Clár’s experience reporting from Somalia, although she stresses that she is not an expert on the country. But she travelled there on several occasions while freelancing for the Guardian newspaper, meeting people in refugee camps whose lives had been destroyed by war and hunger. Eventually, she needed to tell a different story than straight reportage allowed for and Fractured – a great read – is the result.

Its central character Peter Maguire, is half Irish-half-English and lived in Paris before travelling to Africa. His lifestyle is peripatetic, but Clár knows many people with similar backgrounds.

In fact, she too lived in Paris for six years and got married there, she says over a cappuccino in Spiddal’s Builín Blasta café.

Before that, she completed a graduate trainee journalism course in London with Reuters news agency, having graduated from UCG with an arts degree. It’s been a fascinating journey for the 43-year-old and one she never imagined while growing up in Bothúna, just outside Spiddal.

Clár was born in England, where her parents met, before the family moved home when she was three, living first in Inverin before settling in her father’s home place of Spiddal. Clár had skipped Senior Infants in Inverin as part of a school experiment, so the eldest of six was just 16 when she went to college, where she studied French and English.

In her degree year, Clár decided on a career in teaching or journalism, but wasn’t sure how to approach journalism. Someone advised her to work on a portfolio of articles, so she began contributing the Cois Fharraige notes for the Connacht Tribune – reporting on her own community was a good grounding and helped toughen her, she says with a laugh.

One day, Clár went into the UCG career office and found a folder with information on a training course in London run by Reuters, one of the world’s top news agencies.

“”We only got the Connacht Tribune and Galway Advertiser at home – I wasn’t aware of agencies,” she recalls now.

Armed with this knowledge, Clár applied to Reuters and was called for interview. She flew through it, but they suggested she spend a year in journalism college in London first, because she was so young.

That was a non-runner for Clár for financial reasons. Eventually, Reuters relented and she joined a small group of paid trainees.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.