Eilis O'Hanlon


Éilis O'Hanlon is an Irish novelist, unionist and journalist. She writes for the Sunday Independent. She co-authored, with her husband Ian McConnel, four novels under the pen name Ingrid Black. Her book, The Dead, published in 2003, was honoured with the Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel. O'Hanlon's work appears in The Field Day Anthology of Irish Women's Writing.
O'Hanlon is known as one of Sinn Féin's most vehement critics. She has also written of her opposition to emigration from Ireland, frequently arguing that this has damaged and continues to damage the nation, and has also voiced disapproval of transgender people in her work.

Family

Eilis is the daughter of Sam and Tess O'Hanlon, and her uncle was the late Joe Cahill, a senior figure in the Irish Republican Army from the 1940s onwards. Her elder sister was the late Provisional Irish Republican Army member and Sinn Féin politician, Siobhán O'Hanlon. The two sisters remained estranged at the time of Siobhán's death from breast cancer, as Eilis is a unionist and heavily critical of Sinn Féin.

Published works