Aisling Walsh (born 1958) is an Irish screenwriter and director. Her work has screened at festivals around the world and she has won several accolades, including a BAFTA TV Award for Room at the Top (2012) as well as an Irish Film and Television Award and a Canadian Screen Award for her direction of Maudie (2016).^[1][2] She is known for her "unflinching honest portrayals of a Catholic Irish society".^[3]

She was born in Dublin, Ireland to Raphael Walsh, a furniture designer and manufacturer from Navan, County Meath. In 1975, when Walsh was 16, she began studies at the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Dublin.^[4] She then continued her education at The National Film School in Beaconsfield, England, where one of her main influences was Bill Douglas, a Scottish filmmaker who tutored at the school.^[5] She later settled in London.^[6]

In 1985, Walsh wrote and directed her first short film, Hostage.^[7] Her feature film directorial debut was Joyriders (1989). She then transitioned into television work throughout the 1990s,^[8] including episodes of The Bill (1991–1994), Doctor Finlay (1993), Roughnecks (1995), and Trial & Retribution (1997–2002).^[8][9]

In 2003, she wrote and directed her second feature film, Song for a Raggy Boy, which won multiple awards at international film festivals,^[10] including Best Film at the Copenhagen International Film Festival.^[11] Her third feature, The Daisy Chain, a horror-thriller film, was released in 2008.^[12]

Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, Walsh also continued working in television, directing series and television films such as the BAFTA TV Award-nominated Fingersmith (2005); the BBC One film Sinners (2007);^[13] The Fifth Woman, a feature-length episode of the BBC series Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh (2010); and Room at the Top (2012), which earned her a BAFTA TV Award in 2013 for Best Mini-Series.^[2]

In 2014, she directed A Poet in New York, exploring how Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died in New York at the age of 39.^[14] The film marked the centenary of Thomas' birth on 27 October 1914.^[15]

Her fourth feature film, the biographical film Maudie (2016) about Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis,^[16] premiered at the Telluride Film Festival.^[17] As someone who studied painting herself,^[8] Walsh was drawn to the simplicity and beauty in Lewis's work.^[18] The film received positive reviews from critics.^[19] The Japan Times called it "an unabashedly intimate portrait of a remarkable woman".^[20] It was a New York Times Critic's Pick; in her review, Manohla Dargis criticized the film's tone and score, but commended the performances and direction.^[21]

For her work on Maudie, Walsh won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Director; the film won a total of seven awards at the 6th annual ceremony in 2018.^[22] Walsh also won the award for Best Director at the 15th annual Irish Film and Television Awards in 2018.^[23]