作者: Brian Doherty

Born in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, and grew up on a small farm in a place called Slaght, the author was always a free spirit and was eager to taste life’s bounty at every opportunity. In his twenties, while competing in world championship tug-of-war for Northern Ireland, he met up with the Australian ladies team of which Corinne Krarup was a member. The following year in 1993, he visited Corinne in Australia and continued their relationship, eventually getting married in January 1996. Their beautiful twins, Tiarnán and Máiréad, were born on 10 September 1997 on the exact anniversary of the date he met Corinne five years previously. He studied psychology in Australia and found that his desire to understand people and help them was his true vocation in life. They came back to Ireland in 2002 and built their beautiful house on his favorite spot on the home farm where they have lived happily since. He lost most of his eyesight a few years later as a result of retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that attacks the retina. Later he decided to begin studying again and, at present, doing a counseling degree. During this time, he wrote “The Allsorts, ” a book that incorporates so many of the special memories he has of his own children and their friends as they grew up. It highlights the development of moral responsibility in children as they come to the end of their primary school years, and the author hopes that many children of this age will be inspired as they identify with the characters and situations in the story. His wife, Corinne; son, Tiarnán; and daughter, Máiréad, are everything to him and have been his inspiration and support for this book, and he loves them always.