Fiona Ennis on her novel 'The Veil Thins'
Fiona Ennis, pictured, wrote a novel 'The Veil Thins' based on her short story.
Waterford writer Fiona Ennis is preparing her debut novel 'The Veil Thins' after being announced as one of the winners of a prestigious literary competition.
Fiona is one of the 12 winners of the Irish Writer's Centre International Debut Novel Competition 2026 for her novel, which derives from her short story of the same name.
In 2025, her short, 'The Veil Thins', won the Goldenberg Prize for Fiction. The short story follows Sister Annunciata, a young nun going about her day swimming in the Copper Coast and working in a convent.
Sister Annunciata harbours doubts about her place in the convent, seeing women treated like cattle giving birth year after year.
The protagonist works in a maternity ward where birth is not so much a celebration but a resignation of life.
A passage reads: " One mother, Deirdre, had given birth to her eighth child in ten years. When the boy was born, she’d turned on her side and refused to look at him, muttered something about probably being back in for another within the year."
The characters in the story live under the dark cloud of Catholic orthodoxy in the late 20th century, where babies 'born asleep' are banished to limbo and midnight burials take place in cillíns, away from the surveillance of the Church and State.
The character of Sister Annunciata left an impression on Fiona and inspired her to go further with her story.
She said: "After that story got recognition I was thinking about, you know, this is the character I really want to follow and to find out what happens after she leaves the convent."
In the novel, Sister Annunziata leaves the convent behind and forms a kinship with a closeted undertaker. The social landscape of Ireland at the time proved a fertile source of inspiration, especially in terms of hidden sexuality. The murder of Declan Flynn in Fairview Park in 1982 revealed the depths of violent homophobia in Ireland. Fiona commented: "I was also struck by those cases, particularly in the early 80's, the killings of gay men and more recent cases.
"While things have become much better for gay people since those times, I'm also conscious that is not the case in many places all over the world."
Fiona was interested in exploring the 'difficulties of maintaining secrecy over one's sexuality' against the backdrop of 'this kind of environment where there were constraints on autonomy'."
The Irish Writers Centre International Debut Novel Competition 'Pitch Days' take place from September 10 -11. Winners of the competition will be able to present their stories directly to various publishers and literary agents.
Previous publishers involved in the competition include Penguin Random House, Hachette Ireland, John Murray Press, and New Island Books.
Fiona said: "I think we're so incredibly lucky in Ireland to have organisations like the Irish Writers Centre and the Munster Literature Centre because they're so supportive of writers.
"Back when I began writing, it was actually a course at the Irish Writer's Centre that I started with, a course with Danielle McLaughlin (author of 'The Art of Falling'). I think it's fantastic what they offer, the opportunities to sit in a room with these fantastic writers and to learn from them.
"It's a rare thing, I think, to be able to do that and be in such proximity to these great writers, and they're so generous with their time."
Fiona wrote the novel 'between the edges' of raising two young children and her work as a lecturer in Literature and Philosophy at SETU.
She said of writing: "It's just something that I love to do; I'm very happy to spend any time I have writing. I'm just delighted to be able to do it."
Fiona cited American writer Annie Proulx as a literary influence, namely her short story, 'Brokeback Mountain', a heartbreaking tale of two men in love with one another in an unforgiving landscape: "I really love that short story and I think it's just so beautifully rendered.
"I think that sense of a clandestine relationship set against this world where people's autonomy is so curtailed is so beautifully depicted in that short story."
The setting of 'The Veil Thins' is based on the Boatstrand area on the Copper Coast, a place where Fiona enjoys a swim in the sea.
She said: "With the topography of Waterford, we have such a beautiful county and the Copper Coast is absolutely gorgeous. If you're swimming there you can't help but let it infiltrate your writing."
