Author Louise O'Neill tells students to "follow your dreams"

She had what many would have considered the dream job — interning for the senior style director of Elle magazine and living a Devil Wears Prada-style life in New York.

But West Cork-born Louise O’Neill, 29, who gave it all up to follow her first love of writing, told second-level students yesterday that it was only when she let go of the idea of what success should look and feel like that real success came.

“Society doesn’t encourage us enough to dream,” the best-selling author said. “Instead, it teaches us that we need to be practical, that we need to find a job that pays the bills, and that listening to our intuition is nonsensical.