How agreeable are you?
Very agreeable, I’d say, but perception is subjective. To paraphrase words from a poem by Robert Burns: what a gift it would be for us to be able to see ourselves as others see us. In 2016, sometime after I came from Scotland’s BBC Alba to TG4, one of my Scottish colleagues said to an Irish producer, “You have a new broom,” and the producer’s reply was: “New broom? More like an effing Dyson.” It wasn’t meant as a compliment.
What is your middle name and what do you think of it?
My middle name is James, after my father. I like the name because of all the European variations of James, from Hamish in Scotland to Santiago in Spain. Also, a Jacobite is a follower of James, and that has a sense of danger connected to it. My native village in Scotland, Braemar in the eastern highlands, was where the 1715 Jacobite rebellion began, so we were rebels, really, back in the day.
Where is your favourite place in Ireland?
Connemara. We’ve been very lucky for the last 40 years to have lived and worked between both communities in Connemara, north Connemara and south Connemara. I like to walk in the hills, I like to swim in the sea, and I also have a kayak. I’m interested in community, culture, history, literature and language. Connemara provides for all of that and more.
Describe yourself in three words.
Optimistic. Curious. Outsider.
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When did you last get angry?
The kind of anger I would have on big things would be akin to a low rumbling. For example, the State’s lack of ambition for the Irish-speaking community in Ireland. To be fair to the last minister, Catherine Martin, she did show ambition for Irish language arts and Irish language media. Nonetheless, all over Ireland, parents who want to avail of Irish-language education for their children at preschool, primary school, and secondary school levels are being failed by the State.
What have you lost that you would like to have back?
I would like to get back the level of fluency in French that I used to have. I spent almost three years in the late 70s and early 80s living and working in France and Switzerland, and when I was there, I used to make a game for myself. If I were spending an evening in the company of friends of friends, people who wouldn’t know I was Scottish, I would try to avoid being identified as non-French, and very often I succeeded. I still have friends in France, and we still speak French to each other, but 45 years of not living in France has rusted my tongue quite a lot.
What is your strongest childhood memory?
Braemar, where I was born, is known as the coldest village in Scotland, and one night in January 1963, the temperature fell to -22 degrees. The thaw didn’t come until March, so for about two months, I remember sledging down the hill in the middle of the village with all the other children. We each had a wooden sledge, and we’d tie six or seven of them together like a train and just hurtle downhill. Eventually, the sledge train would overturn or break apart, but I remember the fun of that winter. I was five, just before I started school. The year after the big freeze, we moved from the Highlands to the Lowlands, and we never had a winter like that again.
Where do you come in your family’s birth order, and has this defined you?
I’m the middle of three boys. John is older by two years, and Gordon is younger by three years. I found out quite soon that John was a very quick walker; our village had hills, and I was always trailing after him and whining: “Wait for me, wait for me.” I don’t think that birth order defined me, but it definitely pushed me to do things and to take on certain roles. Our parents gave us a sheltered upbringing, and John mainly stuck to the rules. I, however, became the rule breaker, the disobedient one, the first to have long hair, the one who pushed the boundaries, the one who got belted at school. That said, I think both John and I were and are quite shy people. Gordon must have looked at us and decided to become the sociable brother, and he still is.
What do you expect to happen when you die?
My fellow Scotsman, James M. Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan, suggested that death would be an awfully big adventure, so I’ll find out when it happens. Or perhaps I won’t. I’m in no real hurry to discover the answer to this question.
When were you happiest?
I’ve been lucky not to have had many reasons for unhappiness in my life - touch wood. I find happiness in things every day, and things connected to the kids and their life, messages from old friends and colleagues. When I was working, I found happiness when we managed to prise open doors that were closed to us. For example, in 1999, we went out on a limb and relaunched Teilifís na Gaeilge as TG4, and almost immediately, we managed to find an audience. That made me happy. The day when we were together as a group in the Stella Cinema in Rathmines, and the Oscar nomination for An Cailín Ciúin was announced. For me, it wasn’t a big jump-up-and-down happiness, but a quiet happiness and a big sense of relief. I’ve just finished my first historical novel, and after months, sometimes years, of research, I’d find historical proof of a tiny detail of my story, and that would make me happy. How sad is that?!
Which actor would play you in a biopic about your life?
That’s definitely one film I would not have commissioned even as a straight-to-video TV movie, but one of my sons-in-law suggested James McAvoy as younger Alan and Peter Capaldi as older Alan. In matters of popular English language culture, I trust my son-in-law’s opinion.
What is your biggest career/personal regret?
My life has been a series of multiple forks in the road, and I’ve learned not to regret the road I didn’t travel, but to occasionally imagine it. The roads I did choose led me to where I am, a life I really love.
Have you any psychological quirks?
I find water to be bland, and I don’t drink it much. Having said that, water is important for my own creativity. Most of my best ideas come to me in the shower or in the car if rain is pelting the windscreen. At Christmas, I am extremely unpopular because I have a huge aversion to board games and playing cards. Our home is full of card sharks and hyper-competitive people who love egg timer-timed quizzes and pushing coloured plastic counters around the board. I just prefer to sit, sip a non-watered drink and read a book.
Alan Esslemont has published an historical fiction novel, The Princess of Connemara.
In conversation with Tony Clayton-Lea
