{TEXT} Morgan Llywelyn's first memories of being in Ireland, aged five, are of horses in east Clare and the smell of gorse. "And the smell of horses," she adds. Llywelyn's sensory memory and her unusually well-honed awareness of her surroundings have served her well in her career as the author of historical novels, many of them set in Ireland.
Both sets of Llywelyn's grandparents were born in Ireland and emigrated to the US. Her parents split up when she was two and, remarkably, got back together again when she was in her 30s. As a child, Llywelyn moved with her mother back to her family in Texas, while making several journeys back to Ireland over the years.
The impression the horses made on her as a child stayed with her. Llywelyn grew up to show horses and, in 1976, she was shortlisted for the US Olympic dressage team. She missed out on selection by five-tenths of a point, and initially took it hard. "My mother wanted to distract me in some way and she suggested I trace the family history on her side, which was Welsh. So I did the research and wrote it up."
The result was The Wind of Hastings, which prompted her father to ask when she was going to do a book which focused on her Irish ancestry. Hence Lion of Ireland: The Legend of Brian Boru, published in 1980, which has since sold more than 15 million copies and consolidated her career as a writer. "Riding horses at world-class level costs a fortune, whereas writing, you make a few bob," she observes laconically.
One fan of Lion of Ireland was the then US president-elect, Ronald Reagan. On Christmas Eve 1980, Llywelyn's phone rang. It was Reagan to say he'd enjoyed the book.
He subsequently invited Llywelyn and her husband to his inauguration, where he paraphrased a piece from the book. Invitations to lunch followed.
So what is one served in the White House? "It was still Jackie Onassis's White House," Llywelyn recalls.
"Nobody had touched it since she left, since she'd done such a beautiful job." She can't remember what she wore, "although I do remember agonising about it", but she does remember what they ate - since they "stole" the menu. For the curious, they were served black bean soup, fillet of sole, and "some magnificent pudding I wanted to wrap up and bring home with me".
Tyrone Productions has optioned Lion of Ireland, which Llywelyn is very excited about. Reagan was not the only leader to have been interested in what Llywelyn describes as "master politician" Brian Boru. Charles Haughey was photographed at Kinsealy with the book prominent in the picture.
Lion made her wealthy and well-known. Maeve Binchy, then working in the London office of The Irish Times, before her own Light a Penny Candle was published, interviewed her and they subsequently became friends. Llywelyn bought a 17-room farmhouse in New Hampshire and she and her husband, her elderly grandparents and her father-in-law all moved there to live in 1984. But cruelly, by the following year, all the others were dead. Her husband died of prostate cancer. She buried them all, one by one, and was left alone in the rambling house.
"It was like it wasn't happening to me," she says simply. "That was how I coped. And throughout it all, I clung on to the plan that when it was all over, I would sell up and go and live in Ireland and make my home there permanently."
This is exactly what she did. For a while, she lived in Co Clare, then moved to Co Wicklow, finally settling in Co Dublin eight years ago. Her only child, Seβn, was settled in the US, where he still lives. She needs space, since she has 11 cats, a dog named Whimsy "who thinks she's a cat", and a blackbird she rescued as an injured chick, who then refused to fly away and now lives in her office.
ALL the time, she has been writing her novels: The Horse Goddess, Isles of the Blest, Druids and The Last Prince of Ireland, among so many others that she can't give an exact number on the spot. Most of the novels are set in specific periods of history and carefully researched. She has a library of about 900 Irish history books, and the source notes and bibliography at the back of her latest novel run to 16 pages.
What attracts readers is not just the history but the way she manages to reconstruct the details of the time. The child who remembered the smells of horses and gorse now gives dimensions to her recreations of past times. She also draws an analogy between the precision required to ride dressage and of "endlessly polishing words".
What did she think of the film Michael Collins as a historical portrait? "There were inaccuracies, some of them quite big, but I had no problem with it. It didn't take off in the States because it wasn't presented in any context. Americans didn't even know we had a civil war." Llywelyn's "we" is explained by the fact she took out Irish citizenship some years ago.
Her latest book, 1921, is the second in a series of five novels set in the last century in Ireland. The first was 1916, the next three will be 1949, 1969, and 1999. This is likely to keep her busy for quite some time, as there are three-year delivery dates between them. "I have a contract to write a book on St Brendan after that," she says brightly. Energy is clearly a quality Llywelyn has by the truckload.
The main characters in 1921, about the war of independence and the civil war, are Henry Mooney and Ella Rutledge. Mooney is a reporter for The Clare Champion - Llywelyn's grandfather was a journalist who lived in Clare before emigrating. Bells ring. The dedication in the book reads: "For Henry and Ella, my grandparents." Llywelyn has written about her own relatives in this book. "My grandfather taught me to be fascinated by history, so it's the tip of my hat to them," she says, fully aware of the bittersweetness in her dedication for people now dead themselves.
1921 by Morgan Llywelyn is published by Forge at £19.99