Niamh Campbell - Mad Hatter Q&A: Biggest thrill? "Knowing I’ve triumphed over my enemies and they’ll definitely see it online"

Who would be the last person you would invite to your birthday party?
The truth is it’s just this person I hate, but let’s say Donald Trump.

Who would be the first person you would invite to your birthday party?
My sister Aoife, to shield me from having to mingle.

Favourite saying?
‘We ain’t making Casablanca’. It’s taken from Bojack Horseman and I use it to keep me grounded when I’m writing.

Favourite record?
Mary Lattimore, Collected Pieces. I aimed to listen to it giving birth and, while that didn’t work out, I’m still very moved by ‘Wawa By the Ocean’ in particular.

Favourite book?
Dubliners by James Joyce.

Favourite film?
Goodbye First Love by Mia Hansen-Løve. I was totally enchanted.

Favourite author?
John McGahern.

Favourite actor / actress?
Barry Keoghan / Olwen Fouéré.

Favourite musician?
Sinéad O’Connor.

Credit: Colm Henry

Most embarrassing moment of your life?
I travelled alone to Romania, to meet a friend, but my phone died on the Soviet-era train and I lost access to Google Maps and ended up being driven in circles by a taxi driver with no English. The embarrassing part was staging a Karen-esque freakout and demanding he bring me to a police station, where armed officers just asked repeatedly, ‘Why are you here?’

Favourite food/drink/stimulant?
Chocolate/coffee/psilocybin.

TV programme?
Reeling In The Years .

Favourite item of clothing?
A simple black, backless pinafore that just can’t be beat.

Most desirable date?
My husband but without any children and in a mildly stimulating, not too distracting, continental city for, like, three to four days.

Favourite method of relaxation?
I love to be scratched all over like a cat, but not in an erotic way. Can’t find anyone to do it right.

If you weren’t pursuing your present career, what other career might you have chosen?
A history teacher. I would be permanent and pensioned and have every summer off by now.

Biggest thrill?
Knowing I’ve triumphed over my enemies and they’ll definitely see it online.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Niamh Campbell (@niamh_campbell_xx)

Biggest disappointment?
Nothing has failed to disappoint me yet.

Your concept of heaven?
A permanent writing residency during which I am fed and amused by other people, and can take two baths a day, against a backdrop of Eternal Autumn.

Your concept of hell?
TikTok.

What would be your dying words?
Oh, thank goodness.

Greatest ambition?
To raise well-adjusted children despite my genetic inheritance and emotional volatility.

Period of history you’d most like to have lived in and why?
I did live through the 1990s but was too young to experience them properly. Even then I somehow knew they were the glory days.

If you weren’t a human being, which animal would you have chosen to be?
A cat. They are gods.

If you were told that the world was ending tomorrow morning, how would you react/what would you do?
I would spend it playing with my daughters.

Your nominee for the world’s best-dressed person?
There is an American stylist named Allison Bornstein whose look I just love. I couldn’t pull it off, but the vibe is enough.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Allison Bornstein (@allisonbornstein6)

Favourite term of abuse?
I had a Swiss boyfriend who felt ‘shower of bastards’ was the greatest Hiberno-Englishism of all, and I’m inclined to agree.

Biggest fear?
Abandonment.

Humanity’s most useful invention?
The epidural.

Humanity’s most useless invention?
Social media.

• Make Strange by Niamh Campbell is out now. Published by W&N.