LISTEN: Emily Hourican on Princess Margaret, the IRA and the extraordinary true story behind "A House in Winter"

In January 1965, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon arrived at Abbeyleix House in County Laois for a family visit and found themselves in the dark within hours, after an IRA attack took out the electricity, blocked the estate entrances with felled trees, and left the royal guests effectively trapped for 48 hours. Best-selling Irish author Emily Hourican was so startled when she came across the report in the newspaper archives that she assumed it could not be real.

When best-selling Irish author Emily Hourican stumbled across a forgotten newspaper report about Princess Margaret being trapped inside an Irish country house following an IRA attack in 1965, she could scarcely believe what she was reading.

“I went, ‘This can't be true. If this were true, I would surely have heard about it,’” she says. But it was true, and the extraordinary incident became the inspiration for her latest historical novel, A House in Winter.

In January 1965, Princess Margaret and her husband, Lord Snowdon, traveled to Abbeyleix House in County Laois to visit Snowdon's sister. On the night of their arrival, the IRA launched an attack, throwing petrol bombs and cutting down trees to block the estate’s entrances.

Princess Margaret photographed in Belfast, in 1955.

The electricity supply was knocked out, plunging the house into darkness and effectively trapping its royal guests inside for 48 hours. For Hourican, a journalist turned novelist whose previous historical fiction has explored the Guinness and Kennedy dynasties, it was an irresistible premise.

“This is like a locked-room mystery. What happened in that house during those 48 hours with this cast of characters?”The fact that Margaret and Snowdon were already experiencing serious difficulties in their marriage only heightened its appeal. 

Hourican had originally been researching Snowdon's mother, Anne Ross, whose complicated relationship with her son intrigued her, but a chance discovery in the Irish newspaper archive sent her down an entirely different path. The result is a novel exploring not only the lives of the privileged but also the ordinary Irish people living in their shadow.

Central to the story is a fictional young woman named Cait, who works in the grand house and whose circumstances could hardly be more different from those of the princess. Yet both women are trapped, one by royal duty and an unhappy marriage, the other by family responsibilities and the limitations imposed on women in 1960s Ireland.

Interestingly, Hourican reveals that Cait wasn't part of her original plan. “I began to get tired of being stuck inside the house all the time,” she laughs. But as she researched the surrounding community, Cait emerged as a character Hourican couldn't stop writing about. The contrast between the two women gave the novel another dimension, exposing how wealth and privilege don't necessarily equate to freedom or happiness.

For Hourican, writing historical fiction is a delicate balancing act between factual accuracy and creative license. She believes the actual sequence of historical events should remain as faithful to the record as possible. It's what happens behind closed doors, the private conversations and motivations, that belongs to the novelist's imagination, she says.

“My Margaret is my Margaret,” she explains. “I couldn't begin to say that my Margaret is the real Margaret.”

Her research frequently uncovers fascinating glimpses of history that never make it onto the page. One discovery was a newspaper report of a sermon delivered in Kilkenny Cathedral shortly before Margaret's visit. Addressing local hostility towards the royals, a priest reminded his congregation that the Christmas season was traditionally a time for visiting family and questioned why two young people should be denied that privilege.

For Hourican, such small details bring history to life. “Your book needs to be the tip of a very deep iceberg. You need to know so much more than goes in.”

Another recurring fascination throughout her ten novels is female friendship. “The romantic relationships are never the point of any of my novels,” she says, explaining that friendships between women are far more interesting to her because of their complexity and capacity for change. Longstanding friends can be fiercely loyal one moment and furious with one another the next, yet somehow those relationships survive decades of changing circumstances.

Hourican has also ventured into children's fiction with Murder at the Ivy Hotel, a cozy murder mystery inspired partly by her daughter's struggle to find age-appropriate books that were exciting without being excessively dark. Writing it, she says, was an absolute joy. A second installment is complete, and a third is underway.

After eight novels with the same publisher and editor, Hourican also made the decision to embrace change professionally, admitting that she needed to challenge herself creatively. “I think I just needed to scare the living daylights out of myself,” she says.

Listen to Emily Hourican's full interview on "Natter with Kate and Michelle", brought to you in association with Bookstation Ireland and IrishCentral, on Acast or on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Her latest novel, "A House in Winter", is available from Bookstation stores nationwide and online at Bookstation.