The Hound of Ulster

Malachy Doyle was born in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland in 1954. His parents had recently moved up from Dublin and named him, their seventh child, after a local saint. They lived in Whitehead, a small town at the mouth of Belfast Lough all his childhood; his father still lives there. He went to secondary school (Saint Malachy’s College) in Belfast, and then to Bolton, Lancashire where he studied for a degree in Psychology. Malachy taught in Leeds for a year, followed by six months packing Polo Mints. He then worked for seven long years in advertising, firstly for Rowntree Mackintosh in York and later for general foods in Banbury, before buying a small holding in West Wales.

To feed his wife, Liz, their three young children, Naomi, Hannah and Liam (now teenagers), and numerous goats, pigs and chickens, Malachy took a job as a care assistant in a local Residential Special School. For the next seven years he darned socks, patched jeans and generally looked after the children there, before being offered the post of Deputy Head at another Special School. They moved to Machynlleth, a small town on the edge of the Snowdonia National Park, and three years later he began to write for children. He now writes full time, apart from visiting schools or escaping into the mountains, and his books are available in eleven different languages.

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