Old Friends

Tom O’Neill is one of a very close knit family of eleven brought up on a farm in County Carlow. His working life started in science teacher training in impoverished schools in South Africa and he is currently involved in computer based education as well as running a farm in Kilkenny. Restoring the ancient Killahara castle in Tipperary and helping his father publish a social history reconnected him to stories and beliefs that were still vibrant in his own childhood and prompted him to pull together the Fionn Mac Cumhaill tales he had made up to entertain his own children en route to school. These stories can be found in Tom's first children's book, Old Friends: The Lost Tales of Fionn Mac Cumhaill, published in 2010 by Little Island. Tom has also written a related book, Fionn and the Legend of the Blood Emeralds, which is available online.

'Wonderfully irreverent, engrossing - a tour-de-force of storytelling' Gemma Hussey, former Minister for Education 'Gripping and gory and vivid' Maire Ui Mhaicin, academic and folklore specialist '[O'Neill] takes his young teen readers time-travelling with protagonist Dark through tales that straddle the knowable and the imaginary. There is nothing implausible about the emotions that course through these latter-day folktales that bring LED lighting to fairy raths; no false notes dim their sense of loss and betrayal or, indeed, O'Neill's idiomatic style. This is a book straight from the oral tradition - it would sparkle if read aloud' Mary Shine Thompson, The Irish Times 'Tom O'Neill manages to bring new twists and new ideas into the tales in this book. You get really engrossed in the characters' lives and they seem real, not just myth and legend anymore. Tom O'Neill really brings the characters, and the stories themselves, to life. I really liked this book and was absorbed in the story from the very beginning' Brid, age 14, Leitrim