Paul Howard helps Ross O'Carroll-Kelly to write his autobiographical series, largely because Ross can't really write, roysh? Find out more at rossocarrollkelly.com.

He is also the author of the bestselling prison expose, The Joy, and co-author of Celtic Warrior, the autobiography of boxer Steve Collins.

A former Sports Journalist of the Year, Paul covered the World Cup in Japan and Korea in 2002, and the rugby World Cup in Australia in 2003. His account of the Irish soccer squad and the notorious drama in Saipan, The Gaffers: Mick McCarthy, Roy Keane and the Team they Built, was a bestseller.

Paul has also written several massively popular plays and has won the popular fiction prize at the Irish Book Awards three times for books in the Ross O'Carroll-Kelly series.

Born in Dublin, Brian Hughes studied in NUI Maynooth and Trinity College Dublin.

Harry Hughes, author of a number of local history books, lives in Westport, County Mayo. He is chairman of the Croagh Patrick Archaeological Committee and chairman of the Croagh Patrick Famine Memorial Committee and is a member of the Croagh Patrick Millennium Park Committee. The Croagh Patrick Archaeological Committee organised the FÁS sponsored archaeological survey of Croagh Patrick and its environs. The author is also a former chairman of the Clew Bay Archaeological Trail and Friends of Clew Bay.

Gerry Hunt worked for twenty-five years as an architect, eighteen of them with the IDA. In 1986 he left architecture and began drawing political cartoons. From this, he moved on to drawing entire comics ... his first, self-produced, comic was a rhyming, Spanish-language work that he gave away to friends. His book The Streets of Dublin was included in an exhibition entitled ‘Artist’s Books’ in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. He published ground-breaking historical graphic novels for The O'Brien Press, about the 1913 Lockout, Easter Rising (1916), War of Independence (1919) and Bobby Sands. Gerry died in June 2018.

Lisa Jackson lives in Dublin. She works in comic books, illustration and game design and has illustrated books such as Best-Loved Irish Legends, Ice Dreams and The Henny Penny Tree.

Drago Jancar, born in Maribor in 1948, is a novelist, short story writer, essayist and playwright. His works have been translated into many European languages, and his plays have enjoyed a number of foreign productions.

In 1974 he was taken into custody over alleged propaganda, and he was active in the democratization of his native country as President of the Slovenian PEN Centre between 1987 and 1991.

In 1993 he received the highest Slovenian literary award for his lifetime achievement, and in 1994 he won the European Short Story Award. He lives in Ljubljana.

Born in Dublin in 1920, he was educated at the High School, Dublin and Trinity College, Dublin (of which he was an Honorary Fellow); he was also a Research Fellow of Royal Holloway, University of London and of Oriel College, Oxford. He taught in University College Dublin (Classics); in Holland and Edinburgh (English) and held Chairs (English) in Adelaide, Leeds and Stirling. He had travelled widely, lecturing on Irish literature from the US to the USSR and in parts of Africa, the Middle East, India and Europe. He was a member of the Order of Australia, for services to Australian Literature, and gained honorary degrees from the Universities of Lille, France and Ulster.

Although Prof. Jeffares' main interest was Irish Literature, he edited 24 Restoration comedies for the Folio Society and was considered an expert on Walt Whitman. His main work has been on Yeats but he edited and wrote on many Irish writers. His co-edited work includes The Poetry of Joyce in Prose and Verse; Irish Childhoods; Ireland's Women and the Gonne-Yeats Letters.

Norman Jeffares founded IASIL (the International Association for the Study of Irish Literature) and ACLCAS (Association for the Study of Commonwealth Literature).

In public life Norman Jeffares was Vice-Chairman of the Scottish Arts Council; member, Arts Council Great Britain; Vice President Royal Society of Edinburgh; Chairman, Book Trust Scotland and was largely responsible as Chairman of Literature, SAC, for getting the prestigious Edinburgh Book Festival into being.

He died in 2005.

Mervin Jess is a BBC NI Journalist.
He has reported extensively on Northern Ireland in general and Drumcree in particular.