Across the literary pages | 7 February 2011

Edna O’Brien at 80. The grand dame of Irish fiction talks to the Observer about religion, hedonism and conscience.

“Someone said to me in Dublin: masses are down, confessions are down, but funerals are up! Religion. You see, I rebelled against the coercive and stifling religion into which I was born and bred. It was very frightening, and all pervasive. I’m glad it has gone. But when you remove spirituality, or the quest for it, from people’s lives, you remove something very precious. Ireland is more secular, but it went to their heads: a kind of hedonism. They’re free, yes, but questions come with freedom. What about conscience? Conscience is an essential thing. It (moral collapse) generated an ethos of envy. I’ll never forget walking along by St Stephen’s Green [Dublin]. There was a big hoarding with an advert on it for a motor car. ‘Enjoy the begrudgery,’ said the slogan.