Ballycumber native prepares to release new book for children
Ballycumber native Terence Casey has written a new children's book called 'The True Adventures of Googly Eyes' which follows the real life adventures of a pet fish.
Terence based the story on the animals and garden at his home where he cares for hens, pigeons, budgies, canaries, guinea pigs and fish.
One day in 2019 there was very heavy rain in the area and Terence had a pond outside where the fish live. The fish named 'Googly Eyes' swam up to the top of the pond onto the decking in Terence's garden.
Terence had to leave to go to work then and later when he arrived home the flood was completely gone. “There was no sign of the fish. So I looked everywhere and in the end, I looked between the cracks of the deck and saw him. He was in a tiny little puddle near the pond.”
The book will be based on this story and the fish's interactions with all the other animals in the garden and how the other animals help to keep the fish safe as they warn him to stay away from the neighbour's cat.
Terence, who works as a secondary school art teacher, first started writing the book in 2020 and started working on the first draft illustrations that October. “The illustrations took the longest and there are about 31 illustrations in the book.
According to the local art teacher the photoshop aspect of each illustration took about four hours to complete. “I stripped them up on Photoshop and I highlighted areas and just kind of rendered them to be more print friendly.”
He was encouraged to publish the book after Moate artist and librarian Lorna Farrell read it and told him that he should publish the book as it was better than 90% of what she had in the library for young readers.
When he first read the story to his sons James (11), Charlie (9) and Thomas (7), they loved it and wanted more.
Terence also has a great love for animals and nature which is something he grew up with. “I've had pigeons and canaries since I was a little child and we've just kind of grown up with hens here and guinea pigs. If there's an animal in the Rosemount area that gets injured people bring them to us.” He gives examples of a hedgehog that fell down a cattle grid and a blackbird that was stuck in barbed wire.
"I have two stories written at the moment. I have Googly Eyes and then I have Thumper which is our rabbit here. Terence received the rabbit as a rescue after he was found near Clara market."
“For a kid, especially, to read the book, they could come into this garden and relate to everything in it because they know the hens, the guinea pigs are here. They know the neighbour's cat is over the wall and that the cat is down here the odd time prowling around. One night we saw him sticking his paw through the bars so everything is real and relatable.”
The Rosemount resident decided to self publish the book as he wanted to get it out. “Too often you sit on projects," he explained.
Terence also has a great love of music and often performs with his brother Simon Casey and in bars and at weddings. He released a new single called 'One More Day' on Friday, May 27 which has already hit 100,000 streams on Spotify. The song was originally released by Diamond Rio in 2000.
He also hopes to have an original song out by the end of the summer and wants to get back into the studio to record more music. Terence enjoys spending his free time out in the garden, working on his vegetable patch and admiring nature. “It's an area I love to be in and it's been inspirational.”