Stories, writing and drawing have been an escape for me all my life. My vivid imagination was encouraged by the songs and poetry of my native Ireland. My grandparents lived on an island called Inis Toirc, which translates as ‘Island of the Boar’. It is northwest of Clifden Bay, just off the Connemara coast. The families on this island made their living from farming, fishing and boat building. It was a simple life that nurtured values that we can learn from today.
My grandmother told me how reading, poetry and music would fill the house in the long, dark winter evenings. She encouraged me to draw and to invent my own stories, letting my imagination run wild.