Join Caragh Bell for an intimate conversation with bestselling author Louise O’Neill.
Across three acts, they will explore the beginnings of the writer, the evolution of her work, and the cultural conversations her stories continue to provoke.
Louise O'Neill grew up in Clonakilty. Her first novel, Only Ever Yours, was released in 2014. It went on to win the Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year at the 2014 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards; the Children’s Books Ireland Eilís Dillon Award for a First Children’s Book; and The Bookseller‘s inaugural YA Book Prize 2015.
Louise’s second novel, Asking For It, was published in September 2015 to widespread critical acclaim. She went on to win the Specsaver’s Senior Children’s Book of the Year at the 2015 Irish Book Awards, the Literature Prize at Irish Tatler’s Women of the Year Awards, and the American Library Association's Michael L. Printz award. Asking For It was voted Book of the Year at the Irish Books Awards 2015 and spent 52 consecutive weeks in the Irish top 10 bestseller list. The New York Times called it "riveting and essential" and The Guardian named O' Neill "the best YA fiction writer alive today." Both novels have been optioned for screen.
O'Neill's first novel for adults, Almost Love, was published in March 2018, followed shortly by The Surface Breaks, her feminist re-imagining of The Little Mermaid which was released in May 2018. Her second novel for adults, After the Silence, was published in September 2020 and spent six weeks in the top three of the Irish book charts. Idol was published in May 2022 by Transworld and was an instant #1 bestseller in Ireland.
Her latest novel, Whatever Happened to Madeline Stone? published in April 2026, and her first memoir, A Bigger Life, will be published in September 2026 by HQ.