`She was abandoned by her mother and rejected by her father." This is how author Gretta Curran Browne describes her probable ancester, Sarah Curran - the sweetheart of Robert Emmet, who is the subject of Gretta's novel, Tread Softly On My Dreams. But Gretta's description of the abandoned and neglected Sarah Curran could just as easily apply to herself. Born in the Liberties in the 1950s, Gretta was put into Goldenbridge Orphanage at the age of four, where she stayed for six years. After the departure of her father, her mother was forced to go to England and look for work, leaving her two daughters in Goldenbridge. In the orphanage Gretta suffered frequent beatings, most often at night: "I've had insomnia and night terrors ever since. I still have to take a class A sleeping pill at night to sleep, and an anti-depressant when I wake.
"My sister suffered so badly there, she says it has destroyed her life. It was all right for a few girls, the ones who were favourites. But for those of us who weren't favourites, it was very different. And if you were pretty [as Gretta undoubtedly was] they hated you." Her cheerful face winces at the memory. "I've always tried to block it out. I'm a happy and optimistic person. But it leaves its mark. We never spoke about it but we were all damaged. I just hang on to the fact that I've written this book. They couldn't stop me achieving that dream."
By the time she was 11, Gretta had entered a happier period of her life, living with her grandmother in the Liberties. Her uncle, Paddy Hodgins, was like "an older brother": "He said to me, `Gretta, you can be anything you want to be'. I believed him and went sailing off on my dreams."
Gretta left school when she was 13 to go and work in a factory so she could help to support her grandmother: "I gave her most of my wages: 24 shillings a week. The rest went on Tayto crisps, choc ices and the pictures. I lived in the pictures. I wanted to be part of the storytelling magic of it all, but I never thought I'd be a writer because of my poor education."
She spent a brief period of time behind the counter in Woolworth's on Thomas Street ("just across the road from St Catherine's Church, Robert Emmet's final resting-place") before moving to London to apply for drama school when she was 17. It was hard work because she had to fund her studies by waitressing, but even before she got her Equity card she was being offered walk-on parts in Crossroads and eventually got cast in Poldark. Her memories of the maid's period costume she wore - complete with mop cap, petticoats and garters - and those of the other actors in the series helped her to imagine the clothes her characters would wear in Tread Softly On My Dreams. She met a young solicitor and got married. Clearly haunted by her own neglected childhood, she gave up working when she gave birth to her first child: "I had a phobia about leaving her with a childminder.
I wanted her with me all the time. I felt the same when my son was born in 1982." At home with two young children, she felt "full of creativity" that she was unsure how to express. She started writing articles for women's magazines, and then stories for Ireland's Own. It was a conversation she had with her father-in-law that sparked off the novel: "I discovered he didn't know the story of Robert Emmet and Sarah Curran so I sat him down and told him all about it. When I had finished he said I should write it as a book."
Her research brought her to the Wicklow Hills, the archives in Dublin Castle, and back again to the Crown Papers in London: "It was like being a detective. I loved it. Although I started off thinking this would be a love story, an incredible tale of political corruption began to unfold. I discovered many private things about the lives and families of Emmet, Tone and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, but also about the politicians writing secret letters back and forth from Dublin Castle and Downing Street."
One of her most dramatic moments came in Dublin Castle, when the head archivist, Dr Philomena Connolly, showed her the windowless cell where Anne Devlin was incarcerated for 11 weeks. Devlin, from near Rathdrum in Co Wicklow, worked as a messenger for Emmet. After his insurrection failed in 1803, she refused, even under torture, to reveal information about his whereabouts.
Anne Devlin is a key character in the novel and one for whom Gretta has much admiration: "She was a heroine Ireland should be proud of. She is a feminist's dream. The main love story in the book may be about Robert Emmet and Sarah Curran, but there is also the story of Anne Devlin's unrequited love for Emmet."
As for Emmet, her voice is full of reverence when she speaks of his attributes: "He wasn't an ordinary here-today-gone-tomorrow sort of rebel. In the end, he said: `I have sacrificed everything I love for my country' and he was right. Her enthusiasm for these historical figures is palpable and infectious: "You couldn't create such wonderful characters. The truth of this story is better than any fiction. What I've written is faction, really. I find historical biographies are as dead as their subjects. I've tried to inject life and colour into this."
Meanwhile, she is putting the finishing touches to another historical novel set around the turbulent period of 1798 featuring the Wicklow rebel, Michael Dwyer: "He was unbeatable. The Viceroy, Lord Hardwicke, said in 1803 `The capture of Michael Dwyer would be like the capture of an army to us'." The new book, to be published by Wolfhound and entitled Fire On The Hill, is due out later this year. Part of her research involved interviewing Dwyer's descendents.
As we say goodbye, Gretta clutches my arm and plants a kiss on my cheek: "We were so Irish when I was young, we never kissed each other, but now I do it all the time. I'm in my 40s so I can do what I like," she laughs. She leans in to whisper emphatically in my ear: "Always follow your dream." I walk out into the May morning thinking her own example is pretty impressive.
Tread Softly on My Dreams is published by Wolfhound Press at £6.99
