Voices Of The Rising

In this episode Zoë Comyns’ guest is writer Nuala O’Connor – they discuss writing historical fiction and specifically the case of An Cailín Bán – Ellen Hanley. An Cailín Bán/The Colleen Bawn was 15-year-old Ellen Hanley from Limerick who, in 1819, married John Scanlan a 28-year-old squire’s son. He convinced her to elope with him; he took her dowry and after six weeks of marriage he ordered his servant Steven Sullivan to kill her and dispose of the body in the Shannon estuary. Zoë speaks to historian Pat Fitzgerald about stories related to Ellen Hanley, he refers to some of the literary and stage adaptations of An Cailín Bán and the primary source National Library of Ireland documents that exist from the inquest and trial of Ellen Hanley’s murderers. Zoë has commissioned a short story by Nuala O’Connor which imagines the reader of these NLI documents. In White Ellen a descendent of one of the murderers comes to Ireland to find out more about the murder and explore the shame she feels being related to a mur