Every Inch A Saint: A Novel about Eileen O'Connor, Australia's Second Saint-in-Waiting #author Kate Clinch

In this inspirational novel, a family traumatized by addiction and catastrophe discover their great-grandmother’s lost account of Australia’s saint-in-waiting—a severely disabled woman who barely survived childhood but defied the Catholic Church and provided free nursing care in Sydney’s slums—and miracles happen. With a dual timeline, novelist Kate Clinch weaves the story of Eileen O’Connor, whose cause for sainthood is currently active in Rome, with the lives of a fictional contemporary family a century after her death.

The backdrop is Sydney in the midst of World War I and the Spanish Flu. Eileen is crippled by tuberculosis, partial paralysis, and interminable pain. Her determination and faith that she is called to help others, drives her to establish a private domiciliary nursing organization, and brings her into conflict with the Catholic hierarchy. A diverse array of colorful fictional characters and situations also then help bring to life this twentieth-century story of courage and resiliency. One of Eileen’s friends, believing her to be a living saint, records Eileen’s story, leaving it to be found like a lost artifact, in 2019.

To connect with Kate ...
https://www.kateclinch.com/
https://www.instagram.com/kate_clinch_/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

It's good morning, Kate Clinch. Welcome to Yellow Shelf, Kate. Thank you, Jo. I'm glad to be here. Oh, it's my pleasure to have you here. You've got a book. It's out now. Congratulations, your book is called Every Inch the Saint. Tell us about this fascinating book.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Well, the book is it's a historical fiction novel, but it's based around a true story of a woman called Eileen O'Connor who was born in 1892 and unfortunately contracted tuberculosis in infancy. So the infection lodged in her spine. She was disabled as a result of deformity in the spine. She had this chronic infection eating away the bones. She was partially. She only grew to 3 foot 10, which is why we play in the title every inch of Saint, because there weren't that many inches in 3 foot 10. And despite all of this and being bedbound, she managed to set up an order of domiciliary nurses in 1913 to care for the poor in the slums of Sydney.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Fascinating. I mean, I I feel like I've got a hundred questions, but fascinating woman, fascinating carer and almost entrepreneurial back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yes, she was very clearly extremely charismatic. She recruited the support of people like the Governor General's wife and the Premier's wife to help with fundraising. But she was she was a laywoman on a mission, and of course, that resulted in a few bits of friction with the Catholic Church that she also had to deal with in her short lifetime. But yes, she was inspirational. She's just such such a woman that offers us a message of hope and resilience and courage against insurmountable odds. We we need that message.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Yeah, and inspirational is exactly the word this story is.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Okay, well, one thing always leads to another. So I was in Sydney, I love history. Um, I was interested in Mary McKillop because she was such a trail-blazing sort of social justice, compassionate woman. So I went to visit her tomb and posted a picture on Facebook, like you do on holiday. And someone said to me, Oh, if you like Mary McKillop, you should go to Eileen's house. And I had never heard of Eileen O'Connor. She she um her house is in Quidgee in Sydney. I was able to make an appointment because it's now in a convent and went to visit. And at that time, they had a sort of modest museum set up in a couple of rooms of the house with a life-size statue of Eileen and her wheelchair and and sort of like a little cornucopia of her life through artifacts, and and it was really fascinating. But then they also in the house, her old bedroom has been converted into a chapel. That was her instructions. So where her bedroom was is now pews, an adjoining wall has been taken out, and there's like the altar of a chapel, and she has been reinterred in the chapel. She was originally buried in Randwick Cemetery. She had always wanted to be buried in the in the chapel at the house. It took a lot of paperwork, as you can imagine. She was she was um dug up and reinterred. She was found to be incorrupt at that time, her body hadn't decomposed, which is one of the things that is a sign of sainthood. But but um just sitting in her chapel alone, there is a feeling there of sacredness. Like I'm I'm not Catholic, I wasn't brought up in a tradition that's really into saints, you know. I was brought up Anglican and uniting and and not very active in that at all. But I just sat there and it was like I'm in the presence of a saint. Yeah, and it was just a really deep, deep knowing. So I went home with a couple of biographies about her and read them, and that was when I got more of a feel of her medical problems. And like I'm a former GP, so that really landed, and I just was in awe of how she'd managed to do anything, let alone set up this this group of nurses to go off and look after people in the slums. So yeah, it just grew from there. And then one day I just it went from thinking, I can't believe this woman. I can't, I how did she how did she do this? To I want to write a book about that. And while I'm writing that book, maybe I'll come to understand a little bit more of how's she how did she do that?

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Yeah. And Kate, it sounds like this writing this book was your calling.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, I agree with you, and it's really interesting you should say that because um after I'd done the first uh manuscript, first draft, um I actually was diagnosed with cancer. And during that whole period of chemotherapy and some pretty drastic surgery and all the all the stuff that goes with that, I just felt like she was my source of comfort and sus somehow sustaining me through that process. It was it was really um unexpected, it was really profoundly moving. And you know, so so Eileen's life is an example of someone who was heroic and courageous despite adversity. But in writing the story, there's another take-home message from from the book, which is there is something, there is a mysterious sustaining force that's available to all of us when we just can't quite make it on our own.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think this book could be read anywhere in the world. It's just an incredibly inspiring story, a really interesting story. Um, Kate, do you want to tell us about the process of writing? I know you were you mentioned your your previous career as a GP. How did you get to writing and how did you know tell us about the writing journey?

SPEAKER_01 7:41

I always wrote as a child.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

And then, you know, you go to medical school and become a GP, and there's no time to write. But but I had another transformational experience with a near-death experience when I'd been practicing for 12 years or something, and I had my daughter then, and she was really little, and that um prompted a bit of a change of direction. So I decided I was going to stay home with my daughter. Um, I had another child, I homeschooled them, and so that became my next career. But as they finally got independent, um, I had time to start returning to writing again. Um, and yeah, and so this I had this love of history, I had this medical understanding, I had this experience with Eileen. I mean, they just all added up to a book, and I'd written other books before that never never made it to being published. So when I set out to write Eileen, I knew it was a really important task, and it was really important that I should be very respectful of writing, not just about a historical figure, that would be something, but writing about a historical figure that you actually believe is a saint is a whole other level of feeling like this is this is a very responsible, respectful task. And I approached the the nuns um at her convent and said, Look, I want to write a book, and so I was fetted a bit, and and um and then I got the beautiful privilege of working quite closely with two of those nuns um who who loved the book. One of them gets a little cameo appearance at the end of the story, which is just so nice because uh she actually passed away in 2023, but she got to read the the manuscript with her. She didn't know she was in it until she read it, and she liked that, so that was just lovely. Uh, but yes, it was a case of impeccable timing as well, because you know, you can't write a book just because you're interested and determined. There's a whole lot of other things that have to happen, especially if you're writing about something that's inspired. So um I came across Eileen just before a couple of years before COVID, realized I wanted to write about her the year before COVID, got to go to Sydney and meet the nuns and all those things, had spent time in the archives, saw her x-rays right before the lockdown started. Wow, what a journey. What a journey. And especially when you consider that you know, one of one of those nuns has since died, and and another, the other one is no longer well enough to help. It was just perfect timing.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Yeah. I love that writer journey share. I think it's so powerful, Kate. Kate, would you? I know the book's out now. I'll put some links in the show notes of where people can go to learn more about you. Obviously, your website. Uh, it's available on Amazon. I know it's available, but are you gonna keep writing? Are you is there more stories? Uh or are you just gonna enjoy this one?

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Well, I actually have I've got this is one of four manuscripts. I'd written two novels before Eileen, that'll probably just stay safely in the bottom drawer. But I have one that I wrote since since Eileen, which I will be looking for a publisher for. Yeah, watch this space.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Watch this space. Watch this space, and anyone listening who wants to contact Kate, her website, I'll put the details in. Kate, when the next book is published, I would love to have you back. Thank you. I'd love to talk to you again. Yeah, thanks so much. And Kate, besides your website, uh, and I'll put some links into where the book's available. Do you want to point us in any directions of where people should go to either learn more about you, the book, Eileen?

SPEAKER_01 12:07

If if you happen to be in Sydney or traveling to Sydney, the Eileen O'Connor Centre in Kuchi, you can make appointments to go. They've got a purpose-built museum now. You can sit in the chapel. That was just such an incredible space for me. Uh, so that is definitely worth a visit if you're interested and you're in Sydney. Uh, there is information about about Eileen O'Connor and our Ladies Nurses for the Poor, the the nurses that she set up on the internet. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Well, I'm curious. I want to get myself to Kudji to to make an appointment to uh to visit. Kate, thank you so much for writing the book and sharing today with Yellow Shelf. Thank you very much, Jo. Cheers. Bye.