Emily Hourican
Emily Hourican is the author of six novels, The Guinness Girls A Hint of Scandal, The Glorious Guinness Girls, The Privileged, White Villa, The Blamed and The Outsider, and one book of non-fiction, How To Really Be A Mother. Irish production company Treasure Entertainment has optioned the rights to adapt The Glorious Guinness Girls as a returning TV drama.
Her first novel, The Privileged was published in 2016 and became an instant bestseller. It was widely and enthusiastically reviewed, and short-listed for the Best Popular Fiction Awards at the 2016 Irish Book Awards. Her most recent novel, The Glorious Guinness Girls, was again nominated for the Best Popular Fiction Awards at the 2020 Irish Book Awards.
Emily has been an editor – of Himself magazine, The Dubliner magazine and Hospitality Ireland – and a journalist – writing for The Sunday Independent, Image magazine, Woman and Home, Conde Nast Traveller and Time Out – for over 20 years.
Emily was born in Belfast and grew up in Brussels, where she went to the European School and became, for a while, fluent in being a total Eurobrat.
She moved to Dublin in 1990 and studied English and History at UCD, then did a Masters in English Literature, also at UCD. She lives in Dublin with her husband, David, and three children.
In 2015 Emily was diagnosed with mouth cancer, caused by the HPV virus, and treated. She wrote extensively, and very frankly, about the diagnosis, treatment and aftermath, in a series of much praised diaries for the Sunday Independent.
Emily is an articulate, entertaining and experienced interviewer and public speaker. She has regularly appeared on radio and TV, and teaches occasional creative writing classes.
The Cancer Diaries can be read here:
6 december 2015
I just want to go home, to my three kids, back to work, back to my life
Published in The Sunday Independent
Read the on-line published version here
13 december 2015
Emily Hourican is fitted for her radiotherapy mask - 'I see my old life drifting further away from me'
Published in The Sunday Independent
Read the on-line published version here
20 december 2015
"On my birthday I will get a second dose of drugs and my first radiotherapy session"
Published in The Sunday Independent
Read the on-line published version here
27 december 2015
"There are 34 more sessions of this to get through. It is a distance run, not a sprint"
Published in The Sunday Independent
Read the on-line published version here
3 JANUARY 2016
"Right now, this is all more depressing than it is dramatic"
Published in The Sunday Independent
Read the on-line published version here
10 JANUARY 2016
"I don't really know who I am any more"
Published in The Sunday Independent
Read the on-line published version here
17 JANUARY 2016
If Bowie could die, then any of us could...
Published in The Sunday Independent
Read the on-line published version here
24 JANUARY 2016
Two more weeks and this cancer nightmare is over
Published in The Sunday Independent
Read the on-line published version here
31 JANUARY 2016
"I used to like being thin but if this is size zero, then it's horrible"
Published in The Sunday Independent
Read the on-line published version here
7 February 2016
Emily Hourican comes to the end of her cancer treatment - "Day by day, hour by hour - Just put one foot in front of the other..."
Published in The Sunday Independent
Read the on-line published version here
24 JuLY 2016
Second acts: Emily Hourican on her next novel and he struggle after cancer treatment
Published in The Sunday Independent
Read the on-line published version here