INSPIRATION EVERYWHERE

Irish writer Cecelia Ahern chats to YOU about writing her novels in longhand, her love of Lego and looking forward to her first wine-tasting in South Africa  

- NATALIE CAVERNELIS

THE sight of a rag tree in Dublin's National Botanic Gardens sparked a longago memory for bestselling Irish author Cecelia Ahern, as well as the inspiration for her new novel.

"A plaque in front of the tree explained how rag trees are believed to have healing powers," Cecelia (42) tells YOU as we chat via Zoom. "It brought back this memory of when we were younger, driving around the country and seeing them" She's in her home office in Dublin and she'll soon be in South Africa for the Franschhoek Literary Festival this month.

The tree, she says "sparked this idea that I wanted a woman to be deeply impacted by the presence of a rag tree" A rag tree is an old Irish tradition of taking a piece of cloth from a sick person and tying it to a tree in a holy place. The belief is that as the rag disintegrates, the person it's from is healed.

The tree inspired the plot of her next book her 20th - Into the Storm, which will be published in October this year. In it, a doctor saves the life of a teenager on a freezing, wet December night but her life subsequently falls apart.

She moves to a remote part of Ireland to start afresh and discovers a rag tree on the property.