Author Roisin Meaney says she’s a saver My Mini is an automatic. Photo: Getty Roisin Meaney Novelist Roisin Meaney qualified as a teacher and first worked in Dublin and in Zimbabwe. Then after a stint as an advertising copywriter in London, she tried her hand at writing a book.
Her debut novel, The Daisy Picker , won a ‘write a bestseller’ competition in 2002, launching a writing career that would spawn 20 more books, all of which have featured in the Irish bestsellers list. In 2022, she was shortlisted for the Library Association’s ‘author of the year’ category at the An Post Irish Book Awards. The Kerry-born writer is currently working on her 22nd novel, Moving On , which is due for publication in February.
Meaney lives in Co Clare. How did your upbringing influence your relationship with money? Mam was a miracle worker. Thanks to the marriage ban, she had to give up her teaching job when she became a wife.
Roisin Meaney But she managed, with only her share of Dad’s very modest salary as a school inspector, to feed and clothe seven of us – without us ever feeling hard done by. She definitely taught me how to look for the bargains and spend wisely. When were you most broke? After I qualified as a teacher, I was put on emergency tax for the first few months, which was par for the course at the time.
I paid a huge percentage of tax, which was duly paid back in time, but those first months were lean ones. Pot noodle came into its own. What was your biggest ever .
