Posted by Sue Leonard on Monday 1st March 2021
Eleanor has been a secret writer all her life. After School she trained as a general nurse in Jervis street, where she met her husband, and became a staff nurse in intensive care. She trained as a midwife at The National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street, but afterwards returned to intensive care.
“In 1987 we moved to the UK, and I worked in Intensive Care units in Taunton and Newcastle upon Tyne.”
Returning in 2002, Eleanor became a helm of the Lough Derg RNLI lifeboat – a role she continues to hold.
“And I’m the press officer.”
She began to write in earnest – and became a successful poet – with a third collection due out this year.
“But when I wrote stories, I received brutal rejections,” she says.
More recently she has some success with short stories and flash fiction, but having a story published in ‘A Page from My Life,’ has been a high point for her.
“I admire the judges so much,” she says, “and that they thought my words had merit has me walking on a cushion of air.”
Who is Eleanor Hooker?
Place of birth: South Tipperary.
Education: Convent Sisters of Mercy, Tipperary; Open University, Art History and Philosophy of Art. University of Northumbria, MA in Cultural History, thesis in post-modernism; Trinity College Dublin, M Phil in Creative Writing. (Distinction.)
Home: Dromineer.
Family: Husband Peter, sons George and William.
The Day Job: Fulltime Writer.
In Another Life: An astronaut, hurtling through space – where age is irrelevant.
Favourite Writers: John McGahern; Donal Ryan; Anne Tyler; Annie Proulx; Jung Chang; Eleanor Wilner. “And I read Harper Lee’s To Kill a mocking Bird every year.”
Second Novel: “I have a poetry collection and two poetry chapbooks coming out this year – and I’m writing a novel.”
Top Tip: Never give up on your dreams. After rejections, dust yourself down, and get back to writing.
Website: eleanorhooker.com Twitter: @EleanorHooker_
The Debut: A Page from My Life. Harper Collins, Ireland. €16.99. Kindle: €8.51
These 150 pieces of memoir, sent in by listeners of the Ray Darcy Show, illuminate the beating heart of everyday life.
The Verdict: Eleanor’s memorable story, Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, shows the young Eleanor exploring her skewed sense of reality. It’s lyrical, insightful and heart-warming.
Published in The Irish Examiner on January 9th.
© Sue J Leonard. 2021
I have just head Eleanor on The Lyric Feature speaking of Lough Derg and I was entranced
…for a number of reasons: I live in Thurles and regularly visit the shores of the Lough to assuage my hunger for water ( mixed metaphors!!)
…I grew up in Dublin beside the sea.
Sadly I must admit to being hitherto unfamiliar with Eleanor’s work but I loved the pieces I heard.
On reading of her life found something else to entrance: her view that you should never give up on your dreams:
I was a dentist for 44 years but on leaving that went to art school (Limerick School of Art and Design) where I had four of the best years of my life and am now a printmaker and painter,and the person I always wanted to be
I wish Eleanor all the best and I intend to pursue her poetry