She just can’t get angels out of her hair
Lorna Byrne lives in a world where the natural and supernatural intermingle. John Hinton talks to the bestselling Irish visionary who claims to see angels
25 July 2008

Fra Angelico's Annunciation (c1437), portrays the Angel Gabriel

Angels in My Hair by Lorna Byrne, Century £12.99

When Irish author Lorna Byrne was introduced to me in the clamour of a London hotel, I had no idea what she would quietly tell me. For Lorna sees angels. "There's an angel beside you now," she says, after a few minutes. And her serene smile gives not one hint of deceit or duplicity. "Two of them just walked across the room and there's one angel beside your shoulder and he's trying to make you laugh." On cue, I broke into a smile.

Lack of proof positive hasn't stopped Random House publishing her book here in Britain and Australia. The memoir - currently number three on the Irish bestsellers list - recounts decades of angel experiences, God visitations, premonitions and encounters with the spirits of dead people, each story more incredible than the last. She believes she has seen Jesus - just the once.

Her publishers must be delighted. Earlier this year the 54-year-old Dubliner - or "modern day Irish mystic", as the book cover describes her - sat down in a boardroom in New York with the influential book publisher Steve Rubin of Doubleday, the man behind Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, who was seriously interested in the US rights to her book.

"The angels are saying it needs to be this way," she told him during the negotiations. "Lorna," the exasperated Rubin replied, "could the angels be wrong?" The quietly confident answer was "No".

And that's how, in the only publishing deal partly influenced by celestial creatures, the mother-of-four landed an undisclosed six-figure advance from Doubleday, which early next year will publish her book in the United States.

Fame indeed. Yet even Lorna would agree that the publication of her angel-packed memoir, charting her impoverished early life in Dublin and her even more impoverished married life in County Kildare, cannot be pinned on the book's literary merit.

Angels In My Hair is written in a style so basic it could be read by your average eight-year-old. Lorna says the angels wanted it to be as "accessible" as possible. This may be why the book carries endorsements by celebrities including Jim Corr of the singing group The Corrs, the acclaimed Irish singer Daniel O'Donnell and Matt Adams, the author of the American best-seller, Chicken Soup for the Soul of America.

Some will struggle to believe the stories in the book: when she was a little girl an angel revealed a vision of her future husband Joe, but said they would not grow old together due to his illness and early death - a tragic scenario which eventually unfolded. She says she sees not only the souls of people but their physical ailments and that she will often be told how long a person has to live - a disturbing talent which does beggar belief.

Softly spoken, with brown hair pulled back and a simple gold crucifix at her neck, Lorna looks at least 10 years younger than her 54 years. Tiny in height and build, she sits straight-backed and occasionally gazes into space at things she knows the rest of us can't see. There is something childlike about her faith.

She describes angels as "beautiful creatures" and says they are universal entities, with no ties to any particular religion. Some people, she suggests, might be more comfortable describing them as "a higher wisdom" or an inner voice urging you to, say, turn right instead of left, which if heeded can have positive results. "They have represented themselves as angels to me, probably because I was brought up in the Catholic religion, but they are there for people of all religions and none," she says. "They are neither male nor female but can appear as both when they take human form; the brightness and colours of them are wonderful but they aren't like our colours.

"Every single person has a guardian angel; they never leave you. There are also teacher angels who support you. Sometimes I see an elderly person walking along and their angel is supporting them and I know that without the angel's help they wouldn't be able to walk so well."

She exudes serenity. Her gaze stays level as she speaks, like a parent engaging you in conversation while keeping an eye on her children. She says she hopes the book will encourage people to listen to their angels more.

Does the inevitable scorn of sceptics scare her? "I have no doubt and no fear. It doesn't bother me what people say. I don't have a need to prove anything... if angels or souls were in my imagination I could never have touched people.

"But I sometimes think: have I really done that? It's amazing to me. I feel amazed when theologians, priests and people have come from places like Oxford to ask me questions of spirit and I am given the knowledge to answer their questions. I never even went to secondary school, but that's the way it is."

Is she on a sacred mission? "I feel my role here is to let people know that we don't die, it's only your body that dies, your soul goes to heaven. I think I am here to give people hope and courage to live life. We are all looking for hope or belief that we are not just flesh and blood, rotting in the ground when we die. We want to have faith that we have more, that we have a soul. Well, I know this to be true and the angels told me to write the book so people can connect more with them and with their souls," she says.

Few are going to argue with her underlying message of love and compassion and forgiveness and her hopes for "peace among nations and peace in families". As for heaven, it is good to meet someone with no doubts at all.