Irish Tatler

Walk the line: Louise Kennedy on falling in love with writing after years as a chef

The acclaimed Trespasses author spent 30 years in the food industry before a chance invitation led to her a new career

Louise Kennedy: “I go off sometimes and do these nice publicity things, but actually it’s like someone else wrote a book and has this special life because mine isn’t that different from what it was before.”

When I was younger I didn’t write at all. I did a social science degree at UCD and planned to be a social worker. I had a tendency to over-empathise and used to cry at meetings, which was utterly useless to everybody. So that wasn’t really for me.

I ended up in London with a terrible job with an American merchant bank. For a year my job was to put microfiche in alphabetical order – ...