Inspirational Indie Author Interview: Jane Buckley. Author From Northern Ireland Uses Fiction to Help Readers Understand the Troubles

My ALLi author guest this episode is Jane Buckley, an author from Derry, Northern Ireland, who writes about the Troubles based on her own experiences. After building a career in London, she returned home and began writing to help others understand the conflict. Her books draw from real events, capturing both the violence and the everyday lives of those who lived through it.

Listen to the Inspirational Indie Author Interview: Jane Buckley

Inspirational Indie Author Interview: Jane Buckley. About the Author

Jane Buckley is an author from Derry, Northern Ireland, who writes historical fiction based on her experiences growing up during the Troubles. After leaving for London as a teenager, she built a successful career before returning home and turning to writing to help others understand the conflict. Her books draw from real events, capturing both the violence and the everyday lives of those who lived through it. As an independent author, she has navigated the challenges of publishing stories about a difficult past while remaining committed to preserving history through fiction.

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Author Howard Lovy has been a journalist for 40 years, and now amplifies the voices of independent author-publishers and works with authors as a developmental editor. Find Howard at howardlovy.com, LinkedIn and X.

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Read the Transcripts

Howard Lovy: My guest this episode is Jane Buckley, an author from Derry, Northern Ireland, who writes about the Troubles based on her own experiences.

After building a career in London, she returned home and began writing to help others understand the conflict. Her book draws from real events, capturing both the violence and the everyday lives of those who lived through it. I'll let Jane Buckley tell her story.

Jane Buckley: My name is Jane Buckley. I was born in Derry in Northern Ireland in the mid-sixties. As a young lady, I guess like a lot of young people at that time during the Troubles, I left Ireland, and I moved to London. where I lived for nearly 34/35 years. I always knew I would come back home, and as a result of that, I did probably just before COVID.

I had this idea of through my travels all over the world, a lot of people didn't truly understand why the Troubles happened in Ireland and why they went on for so long.

So, I decided to write a book, a fictional story from my own experiences, which evolved into what is called a tetralogy. So, it's a series of four books based around true events and from my own experiences having lived at that time.

Howard Lovy: Wow. Okay. You went through your entire life story.

Let's go back in time a little bit. Can you tell me a little bit more about where and how you grew up, and also was reading and writing a part of your life?

Jane Buckley: Yeah, okay. I grew up in what is known as the Bogside, the heart of the Bogside here in the city of Derry, which would have been prone to Bloody Sunday massacre, for example.

So, I grew up until I was a teenager, right in the heart of the Troubles, which every day to us was just normal. But in hindsight, looking back it was a war. It was a horrific time for everyone.

I guess my love of reading especially was a form of escapism. So, I would have been the one that probably would be in the corner reading a book.

I just immersed myself in any book I could get my hands on, I just read. In fact, we had a little, I would call it a library, it was a bookshelf quite frankly, at home, and it would have had all the classics.

I don't know how many times I read Jane Austen books, but I just loved reading. It just took me away from what was going on around me as a child.

Howard Lovy: So, you felt it specifically? Were there bombings or violence?

Jane Buckley: Oh, yeah, absolutely. It was just something that we didn't know any different. The Troubles started really in the late 60s, early 70s, and, I would have been a four/five-year-old child.

Wherever we went, we were stopped, to go into the city center. People complain about security at airports, we lived with that. If you wanted to go from one end of the street to the other, you used to have to go through British Army checkpoints. You would have seen guys being pulled aside and lifted, as they called it here, and just being lifted and arrested, thrown into the back of British Army Saracens.

Bombs going off in the distance, bomb scares. People I went to school with, who got involved with paramilitary organizations. So, it was ripe, and it was everywhere. I could only describe the city as black and gray. It was not a pleasant place to grow up. So, I couldn't wait, like many, Howard, to get out, because there was a big world out there, and I'll never forget my first time walking down Oxford Street, past Selfridges, and the size of the streets, and just this feeling of a weight being lifted off you. It was safe. You didn't have to look over your shoulder, there was always this unmentionable sort of invisible tension growing up, it was tough.

It really was tough, and it gave me a terrific foundation to appreciate a lot more things probably than most.

Howard Lovy: Yeah. Do you think you still suffer from a form of PTSD from that kind of childhood?

Jane Buckley: If anything, it's given me that sort of, as I say, the strength to just do things, to take risks.

Writing was a risk for me because I'd obviously never done it before.

But I'll be honest, I don't think, and I know I'm digressing, but the issue I've had about my books is the fact that they are about the Troubles. So, there are a minority of people who just do not want to even look back, don't even want to talk about it.

I think it's important that we do not forget, because we still have big issues here. But most, if not all the people in this country just do not want to go back to the stereotyping, the prejudices, just because we are Catholic or Protestant.

I wouldn't say I suffer from PTSD, but I would definitely say, especially for this generation, there's a serious mental health issue with young men and women in the north of Ireland specifically, and I do believe that stems from their parents having gone through the Troubles and staying here, and perhaps not getting out, if that makes sense.

Howard Lovy: So, you got out at the age of 17 and you went alone. Were you defying your parents or did they say, leave? How did that happen?

Jane Buckley: My sister happened to be in London, and she actually took me over when I was 17 for my birthday. That was in the June, and I came back and, I'll never forget it, but my mother took a look at me, and she just knew. Mummy always encouraged us to travel because she would have loved to have traveled, but at that time, she was a homemaker, and she didn't.

But it was amazing. I was very fortunate. I worked hard. I loved London. Whereas, if my child, my youngest daughter, at 17 had said, I'm going to London, I would have gone ballistic.

There was opportunity there. There's a big world.

I am a Republican. I do hope that one day we will sort this out and we will have a united Ireland. I don't know what I would have done if I had stayed. It would have been quite interesting. In fact, I've probably never really thought about it that much, but I just knew I had to get out. It was fight or flight, I think.

Howard Lovy: So, then you went on to have a successful career. What was your trajectory? Did you go to college or begin working?

Jane Buckley: No, I didn't go to college because there wasn't an opportunity. Again, it wasn't really mentioned. It wasn't done.

In Derry, we had probably around 40 shirt factories, manufacturing factories, in the city. So, a lot of the women actually would have gone to work in a factory. or left, but I did a secretarial course, and I just needed money.

Our family, we had a business that was in the heart of the Bogside. The business was lost. We lost our home; we ended up squatting in social housing. So, we literally went back to scratch. So, money was very tight, and I just needed to work.

At that time in London, the early eighties, it was booming. So, I got a cracking secretarial job. I worked hard, and I still work hard. I've got a stubborn work ethic; I don't sit down very often.

In the end, just as time went on, I found that I was naturally good at sales, and I love managing. I ended up as a national sales manager for the Bank of Ireland before I married my husband and retired, came back to Ireland.

I think it's like anything, if you put the work in, you get the reward, and I was very successful.

I've done things in my life, Howard, that I never, ever dreamt that I would do. So, I feel very privileged. I'm very lucky

Howard Lovy: Now, all the while, did you have a secret manuscript in your desk drawer or did that?

Jane Buckley: I didn't. In fact, it's a very funny story.

It was just, as I say, before COVID and it was New Year's Day. I came downstairs, we were staying, my husband and I, we hadn't bought our house here, but we were in the northwest at Mallinhead, which is, believe me, you have to open the car window to get the car door to open in the wind, you couldn't get any more rugged.

I came down and I said, John, I'm going to write a book.

And he did laugh. He did laugh. He just thought, really? And I went, yeah, I'm going to write a book.

The reason I wanted to write was that I worked for American Express for about 13 years, and I used to go back and forth to the States, to the Amex Tower in New York, and the guy I worked for, he traveled a lot and I was his PA and I traveled with him, and it would come up numerous times. People would ask, what is it that's going on? What's it all about?

And unfortunately, the media tended to manage the news the way that suited it, the British media. So, people really didn't understand that it could have been so easily avoided.

It was the case of just, there was gerrymandering. If you were Catholic, you didn't get a house, you didn't get a job. It wasn't a pleasant place. The opportunities were just taken away.

So, I thought, so many amazing books have been written by journalists or politicians about the Troubles, and I thought, I'll write a fictional tale that has a little bit of everything in it. It's a love story. It's based on my own experiences when our house used to be raided quite regularly by the British army.

You can imagine that was pretty terrifying, house after house along the street. So, it's really a little bit of a memoir as well as just bringing in some of the characters and that black humor that tends to get you through tough times. So, that was really why I started to write

Howard Lovy: at that point, when you started to write, were you back in Ireland?

Jane Buckley: I was back in Derry, yes, I was.

I'm not getting any younger and I did query, and I did try very hard to get an agent, which is very difficult in Ireland because most of the agents are obviously, as you can imagine, are London based. I did approach a lot of publishing houses, but there was one particular agent, a guy called Darley Anderson in London, who sent me quite a bit of a note, “never have, never will have anything to do with the Troubles”.

And I just thought, you know what, I'm just going to do it myself.

I've set up my own limited company. I've set up myself, Oakleaf Press. I regard myself now as a publisher and a writer. But the one thing I have to say is I love the writing.

Like most writers, we all love being left in peace, being left in that corner and just go into that world of imagination, and please do not disturb me.

But it's been a tough road. There's a lot of things that I have learned the hard way. There's been a lot of wonderful things that have happened too, but I don't think I've ever worked so hard in my life.

Howard Lovy: I'll bet, yeah. That's disheartening to hear that a literary agent said he didn't want to hear about it.

Jane Buckley: It's a difficult subject, it truly is. The books are a tough read. They're based on true events and they're quite graphic in places. It's quite a heartbreaking story. Each book is 135,000 words. So, it's a good chunk of a book and there's four books. But you're going over 30 years and you're telling the story from a young Catholic's perspective.

You're telling it from a young Protestant male's perspective. He's Oxford educated. He comes over to Ireland. He's quite naive, and he's full of grandeur and he learns very quickly.

Then of course, you've got a British soldier. A lot of the British soldiers, when you think of it, they joined the army too, because there was no work.

This guy was from the northeast of England, and these characters become so real to you, but not everybody wants to read about the Troubles, but I do think it's improving. There's been a couple of books that have come out. I know Disney had a TV series called Say Nothing, which I actually used quite a lot as part of my research.

I didn't write the books to make money, thank God. But I wrote the books. I have grandkids in New Zealand. So, it's a little bit of a legacy. It's for anyone that wants to learn a little bit more about what went on, what it was like, but with a good storyline to support it.

Howard Lovy: Sure, yeah, it's part of your mission in life since you witnessed it as a child.

Now, did you feel a need, because it's such a controversial issue with many elements and sides to it, did you feel a need to be fair and pick a representative from all sides, or are you just telling a human story and not worry about the politics of it?

Jane Buckley: No, I had to be very considerate. When I look at some of the reviews I've had on Goodreads, people have said that I've been quite unbiased.

That was not easy at all, because you can imagine, I did an awful lot of research in terms of the unionist or the loyalist community, which quite frankly, growing up, we never mixed. I never mixed with Protestants because, geographically the city of Derry is split by a river, and you would have Catholics on one side and Protestants on the other side. The schools are not integrated, and they still are not integrated. Our schools are very segregated. We have Catholic schools; we have Protestant schools. Of course, it's got a trillion times better since 98, since the Good Friday Agreement, but we still have a lot of work to do yet.

But I did work very hard at trying to tell the human story from the Catholic, from the Protestant, and especially from the British soldier. I brought the human element of how difficult it was for a young 19-year-old squaddie to end up, as he regards it, part of the UK and being spat at and being hated and things that happened to him.

Then obviously, again, when he was, I don't want to give too much away of the story, but his life afterwards, how it impacted him the things that happened to him while he was serving here in Northern Ireland.

So, I do think I've worked hard at that, and I'm told that I got that pretty spot on.

Howard Lovy: How did you do the research for these characters or points of view that you yourself weren't a part of?

Jane Buckley: For the soldier perspective, thank God for YouTube because there's hours and hours of videos of British soldiers who two or three times came over here to the north and then they talked about how it affected them, what it was like.

So, I did do that. I did interview a British soldier as well, whom a friend introduced me to, and I have to be honest with you, that was quite tough.

I was talking to a few women from a reading group in a library the other day, and we were just explaining, when you went through these security checkpoints, you'd have these young lads, they're all in their late teens, early twenties, and you're a child, and they would be trying to make small talk to you, you just could not be seen to talk to a British soldier, it was the enemy.

It sounds very surreal now. So, even just me interviewing this guy, knowing that he served, it was tough. So, the inner child is still there, still comes out at times.

But I did a lot of reading, I read so many books about the political platform, how it all changed from the Armalite to the ballot box, and I learned so much. I really did. It was fascinating.

Howard Lovy: Now, there's a tendency or maybe a trap, to make these kinds of preachy books, but are these very character driven rather than plot or situation?

Jane Buckley: Yeah, they're very character driven.

I love writing dialogue, so there's a lot of dialogue in there.

We all have our favorite characters. I have one particular favorite character in there, I'm in love with him, he's just gorgeous. He's such a lovely man. But then, of course, you've got the villain, and you just couldn't like him for Adam, but no it's not preachy, it's a human story.

Again, as I say, it's about love, it's about loss, it's about grief. It's about things that happen that are out of your control and the frustration, poverty too. It all comes together.

The name in itself, I mean, Turmoil would have been from 1972, as I say, just after Bloody Sunday here, which is the worst year of the Troubles. Actually, forgive me, 1975, it would have been, over 500 people.

And again, Howard, when you think of what's going on in the world, the numbers don't seem very high, but at that time, we were on the doorstep of Britain, and this was England, and this was happening on the doorstep.

I suppose the media were very selective on what was being shared. And again, a lot of English have read my books and said, even a lot of Dublin people, from down south in the Republic of Ireland, have said, we had no idea that this was going on.

It was a very tough time, it truly was. It's almost like it happened to someone else now, but there are times it still does raise its ugly head.

Howard Lovy: So, let's shift to the business side of it. You're self-published, I'm assuming part of it is because you want to tell the story exactly the way you want to tell it.

Jane Buckley: Precisely. Yeah, and, I guess, given I didn't go to college, I think one of the things I've found is that I am a perfectionist. And from just sharing and talking to other writers or authors, you're never satisfied with what you produce.

I look at Turmoil, for example, that was the first book that I've written, and I did what the rules are, you get yourself a great copy editor, you get yourself an editor, you get yourself a proofreader, but I was still going back and looking at it and wanting to change it.

I guess again, it comes down to this sort of control freak in me, you have to be able to have total control.

So, I've had to actually really stop myself. You know, let it go. The feedback I'm getting is great. I've had terrific reviews. I was an Indie Writer Award winner in the U.S.

I've had the most wonderful opportunity because, my next book, part of the storyline was that there were two New York cops, two brothers from Cork in Ireland who migrated or emigrated to America, and they're 17 or 18.

One of them was in the bomb squad in the New York Police Department. He and his brother, who're both policemen, they used to watch the news and they would see the kids being out rioting and all sorts of things, and to cut a long story short, they decided they would bring a couple of kids over to America, give them a six weeks break, let them know that there's a big world out there, and that's fantastic. They had host families.

Over 30 years, they ended up bringing 23,000 kids to the east coast of America to 16,000 host families, to give these kids from very tough backgrounds, in terms of mother, father in jail, whatever, but to give them a taste of the sun, the beach, just normal life.

Ultimately, knowing my luck, I wasn't chosen. So, I had written that as a storyline in the book and it's a wonderful scene when this kid's chosen to go to America and you can imagine, in the 70s, Ireland, we were quite behind everybody else, but the idea of going to America was like winning the lottery.

So, I shared with Project Children, based up in Greenwood Lake in New York, that I'd done this, and then within six months I got to know them, and now they've asked me to write the 50th anniversary book, the story about Project Children.

So, I'm interviewing host families, introducing the kids and hearing their stories. So, it's been a fantastic experience. Writing has changed my life. It has taken over my life. I'm not too sure my husband is very pleased about it.

Howard Lovy: That's great. That's wonderful that Project Children is having you write these real stories.

Jane Buckley: Yeah, very much

Howard Lovy: What about marketing? I ask this of all indie authors, but you have something that, I don't know if it's easier to market because people are curious, who don't know much about The Troubles, or is it more difficult to market because people don't want stories that make them feel uncomfortable?

Jane Buckley: It's been especially hard. Ironically, the books have gone down extremely well in the States and in the Republic of Ireland. Now, there is a book festival in Belfast every year, as there is in Dublin, as there is anywhere, but I have definitely felt a real pushback from them.

I think there's two reasons. Let's be honest, one is because I'm, as I call it, an indie publisher, an indie author. There is still, I believe, and I have experienced an element of, we won't touch you because you're an indie publisher. They just won't go near me, and I do think that the fact that it is about the Troubles as well, and as I say, they're tough books to read.

The language is strong, but it's a sign of the times. There are certain things that are happening in the books where, let's be honest, you can't use pretty words. You have to make it as real life as you possibly can. So, in terms of marketing, I think it was Obama, I remember reading something about him saying about when he started his campaign, when he first got into politics, he focused on his own community. He started in and around where he lived and he used his network and obviously that built up and spiraled, and whatever.

I've had an amazing response from my own community, within and Derry, and as I say, down south, I've been able to get into, a couple of festivals in Dublin. Dingle Festival, which is a huge festival here in Ireland. But I'm still at the gates, trying to knock at the door to get into Belfast and to that part of the world.

But nothing happens fast when it comes to books. I think that's another thing, it doesn't happen overnight.

Howard Lovy: Beginning locally is smart, people like the mirror being reflected back on them.

Jane Buckley: Yes, and there's that commonality. As I said, I was in that reading group the other night and we were able to talk about places and people, characters that are in the books, they can identify with.

What's really gone well is word of mouth, people are referring, they're talking about them.

I've got probably nearly a couple of thousand people on Facebook following me, but the majority of them have actually bought the books already.

So, you've got to think out of the box, how are you going to get people to attract, and again, it's demographics because most of the people that read my books are 50 plus. Because they've lived through the Troubles, they can associate with it, and ironically, I had written the books for the younger generation thinking that there's a strong storyline, but they'll learn at the same time.

But I don't know whether it's just a case of, are kids reading as much as they used to? You hear they are, and then you hear they're not.

So, I think just starting local and just wacky ways. I've got flyers in my handbag; I carry them everywhere. I just leave them down no matter where I am.

Howard Lovy: You're very much old school, doing it the old-fashioned way of hitting the streets and book fairs and things like that. You're not out there making TikTok videos of you dancing.

Jane Buckley: You know what, I'd probably do better because I'm such a bad dancer that they would probably go down very well.

It depends. It's always about what your goal is. You could spend all day on your phone doing all sorts.

My goal is to write. I love the writing. I've got the legacy for my grandkids, hopefully from reading them when they're 18 plus, I must add. When they're older, they can learn a little bit about what my life was like growing up.

My goal is really just to write and to share, and in a perfect world, it would be wonderful if you make some money, and again, that's one of the advantages, people can buy my books directly off my website. So, for local people sometimes if I'm passing by, I'll knock the door and drop the book off for them and interact with the readers, and I love doing that.

I'm not shy. So, I have no problem knocking on someone's door, handing the book, and the pleasure that people get from me, having written the book, just giving it to them, and I wrap them up as a gift. I've got an option on the website if they want to say happy birthday and things like that.

I don't promote my books on Amazon because everyone has to, I think for convenience and distribution, it's easier to have your books on Amazon. So, for example, for the American market, it's easier for people to get the books on Amazon and delivered in the States, whereas obviously locally I can sign the books and post them.

But even for, I don't know what the postal system's like over there, but my books are heavy. So, it can cost anything from, £3-£4 pounds just to post a book. Then you go to bookshops and books are £2 and stuff.

So, it's all about volume. The more books you sell, obviously, the better, the more you make, but it's still nice when you get that order coming up, when you hear that little ping and you go, oh, someone's bought my book.

Howard Lovy: Looking ahead, what can you tell us about what you're working on? There's the Project Children book, anything else coming down?

Jane Buckley: It's their 50th anniversary, so they've got a huge event over in Monaghan, which is just on the border over here. There's a peace campus, and it's a 22-million-euro peace campus, and all the archives are coming over from the States, and they're going to be making the Project Children Archives, setting that up there.

So, the book isn't due out until 2026, but I'm working on it now because I've already got an idea for a book after that, which would be about the Irish Civil War. Just after the 1916 rising, we had a civil war for two or three years, and I really do not know anything about it, and I think that's something that I would be fascinated by, where it's brother turned on brother just to see what that was all about.

So again, it'll be fictional. That's if my husband hasn't divorced me by then because he never sees me. I'm locked up in this room in my little world, working away.

Howard Lovy: I'm sure he understands once he sees the finished project.

Thank you, Jane. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.

Jane Buckley: Good, I'm delighted. Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it, Howard. It's lovely to get the opportunity.

Howard Lovy: Thank you, Jane. Bye.