Maeve Murphy: ‘It was a red-light district, and for an Irish Catholic that was very much ‘Oh my God’ – I was really shocked’

The Belfast-born filmmaker turned author reveals a pragmatism born out of the Troubles, her Cambridge education, casual racism in London during the 1980s and how the city's murky underbelly provided both inspiration and salvation for her debut prose

Maeve Murphy author and filmmaker. Photo: Steve Ryan

Emily Hourican

“I wanted to give them a voice – because it felt wrong that they didn’t have that,” Maeve Murphy says of the characters in her vivid new novella, Christmas at the Cross.