"Once upon a time, and a very good time it was too"

I had fun looking through some old work for a painting for a forth-coming group exhibition of Irish picture book artists that will take place in London next month. Looking for something with a particularly Irish flavour I chose my first illustration from The King Of Ireland's Son by Brendan Behan, which I illustrated for Andersen Press back in 1996.

Behan has a wonderfully funny and yet poetic turn of phrase throughout the story.

"Once upon a time, and a very good time it was too, when the streets were paved in penny loaves and the houses were white- washed with buttermilk and the pigs ran round with knives and forks in their snouts shouting, ‘Eat me, eat me!’ there lived a King of Ireland and he had three sons named Art, Neart and Ceart......"