Louise O’Neill: The lockdown brain drain and pandemic ‘strain’ on long-distance relationship 

Cork-based author and columnist Louise O'Neill speaks openly, honestly and from the heart about surviving lockdown and being apart from her partner, Richard Chambers, for most of the year

Louise O'Neill: 'I couldn’t read anything, which is very unlike me, and that just wasn’t conducive to writing.' Picture: Miki Barlok

Author Louise O’Neill has spoken about how much pressure she felt she was under when the country went into lockdown in March and how difficult the pandemic has been for her relationship.

While many people picked up hobbies and started baking up a story, she was fielding questions from well-intentioned people about how she would make the most of her time at home. She says the expectation that she would write her way through and emerge at the other side with a book or two to show off actually stifled her creative impulses.