Betty Stenson
Aged 10, Betty was made school librarian, and after leaving school she joined the library service. Whilst working there, in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown, then in South Dublin, she took a degree, gaining a double first. She…
Marc McMenamin
Marc has always had a passion for history, and it was fuelled by a wonderful history teacher in Donegal. “I remember reading history books instead of doing my homework,” he says. “Research became an obsession to…
Anne Youngson
After university Anne went into the Motor Trade, where she stayed all her working life as a senior executive. She always wrote, but did so in secret. “I always assumed that writers were other people,” she…
Charlotte Duckworth
Charlotte grew up surrounded by books. “Grandad was an antiquarian bookseller, selling the rarest books, and there were about 3,000 books in my parent’s house.” At 12, she finished a novel. “I typed it out on…
Christy Fleming
Christy and his three siblings were brought up by their widowed mother. “My father died when I was 13 months old, so I can’t remember him.” Christy walked out of school aged 12. He did various…
James Kavanagh
James has always been interested in food. “My mum was always cooking for her friends, and she made sure I knew how to cook. And I did home economics at school.” Leaving college half way through…
Aoibheann McCann
Book mad, Aoibheann taught herself to read aged 3, and by junior infants was reading the Famous Five. After college she worked for an environmental theatre before moving to London with her husband to be. She…
Daisy McNally
The third of five children, Daisy gained her love of books from her mother. “She was a great reader.” After university, Daisy moved to London and worked in publishing, starting out as an editorial assistant….
Eoghan Smith
Brought up in Balinteer, Eoghan was a prolific reader. “I wrote terrible poetry as a teenager, but any other writing I tried, never worked out.” He pursued an academic career, working in a video shop between…
Nick Richards
Mark and Shane met on the first day of college and have been good friends since. In 1998, when Shane was in Dublin, and Mark in Limerick, they would email back and forth and they invented…
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne
Five years ago, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne’s husband died after a short illness. An internationally renowned folklorist, Bo Almqvist, who was 20 years Éilís’s senior, had been, simply, the love of her life. His death left her…
Fiona Gartland
A huge Enid Blyton fan, Fiona read to stave of childhood boredom. She became a dental nurse, eventually working at The Dublin Dental University Hospital, but when her children came along she took an eight-year career…