Claire Ranson was born in England where she completed a degree in English Literature and a Master's in Children's Literature. She has worked with Poetry Ireland and Children's Books Ireland. She now lives in Dublin with her husband and two children.

Jane Ray's distinctive style has established her as a highly successful artist both for her paintings and her wrapping paper and cards. Increasingly well-known too as an illustrator, her picture books have attracted enormous attention around the world.

Tomi Reichental was born in 1935 in Slovakia. He was sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1944. Tomi has lived in Dublin since 1959 and regularly talks to Irish schools about his wartime experiences.

A documentary about Tomi's attempts to meet one of his jailers, Close to Evil, has been shown on TV and in cinemas throughout the world, and helped again to raise the profile of the Holocaust.

Tom's life story has been told for children by Eithne Massey in her book Tomi: Tomi Reichental's Holocaust Story. 

Patrick 'Paddy' Reilly is an Irish folk singer and guitarist. Born in Rathcoole, County Dublin, he is one of Ireland's most famous balladeers and is best known for his renditions of "The Fields of Athenry", "Rose of Allendale" and "The Town I Loved So Well". Reilly released his version of "The Fields of Athenry" as a single in 1983; it was the most successful version of this song, remaining in the Irish charts for 72 weeks.

After years a solo performer, he joined The Dubliners in 1996 as a replacement for long-time member Ronnie Drew. He played with the group for nine years before leaving for New York City.

Dubliner Barry Reynolds is a character designer/concept/visual development artist and illustrator who has worked on the Oscar-nominated, animated movie The Secret of Kells, on Aardman and Sony Pictures Animation’s Arthur Christmas, and on Irish language graphic novels, An Táin and Deirdre agus Mic Uisnigh, where his artwork helped these Irish legends to a new readership. As a child, Barry saw The Jungle Book and announced then that he intended to be an artist, and he has realised that dream, apart from a few brief flirtations with wanting to be an astronaut, a dinosaur hunter and a zoologist … the last of which came in handy when working on The Great Big Book of Irish Wildlife.

Neil Richardson studied Philosophy in University College, Dublin, before writing his first book, A Coward If I Return, A Hero If I Fall: Stories of Irishmen in World War I, which won the Argosy Irish Non-Fiction Book of the Year award at the 2010 Irish Book Awards. This was followed by Dark Times, Decent Men: Stories of Irishmen in World War II in 2012, and According to Their Lights: Stories of Irishmen in the British Army, Easter 1916 in 2015. A member of the Reserve Defence Forces, Neil has also written and produced plays with a Great War theme and has made several national television and radio appearances, including as consultant historian on RTÉ television’s centenary programme ‘My Great War’. He recently completed an MA in Military History and Strategic Studies (Maynooth University) and is currently studying for a PhD in History.

Ralph Riegel lives in Cork. He has worked as a journalist for several newspapers including The Cork Examiner, The Evening Echo, The Evening Herald and The Sunday Independent and is the southern correspondent for The Irish Independent. He is also a regular contributor to RTE, BBC and TV3 and to British newspapers including the (London) Independent and The Daily Telegraph.