Beginner’s pluck: Former teacher Aisling Rawle

'The Compound' is an addictive, beautifully-paced look at consumerism and a wish for fame in a mildly dystopian future

Sat, 30 Aug, 2025 - 01:00

Sue Leonard

A quiet child, Aisling spent much of her spare time reading and playing the piano.

“I was always a storyteller,” she says.

In college, she started teaching the piano and immediately loved it. She taught it privately for six years.

She also taught English in Dublin schools.

Aisling fell into writing after reading Sally Rooney’s Normal People:

I had felt that writing was for an elitist group of people, but I felt Sally Rooney had lived my life.

She started writing in 2019, but the idea for her debut came to her in 2023.

“It was the first day of the summer holidays,” she says.

“I knew the opening scene of two girls waking up in a strange house.

“I didn’t understand what it was, but once I had the context, the story unfolded naturally. I wrote it in six weeks.”

Agent Rachel Mann sold the book in a five-way auction in Britain — seven-way in the US.

“Mocks were going on at the time. It was my first time teaching Leaving Certificate and the two things seemed equally important. I didn’t tell anyone until the summer,” she says.

Who is Aisling Rawle?

Date/ place of birth: 1998/ Leitrim.

Education: School in Carrigallen, near the Cavan border; University College, Dublin, English; MA in education; soon to start an MA in literature at Edinburgh University.

Home: Dublin.

Family: Mum, dad, brother, and sister.

The day job: Full-time writer. “I left teaching at Christmas 2024.”

In another life: “I’d have happily carried on teaching.”

Favourite writers: James Joyce; Mary Renault; Kasuo Ishiguro; Sally Rooney; Ian McEwan; Virginia Woolf.

Second book: “I’ve been working on it since before The Compound. It’s going well.”

Top tip: “If the words are there, write. And if they aren’t read.”