I never thought I’d get to read my books to my own children

JP Quinn, head of the UCC Visitor Centre and author of his second children’s book, A Tree At UCC, is the right man for the job.

His pride in his alma mater means he is always thinking of new ways to tell the stories of UCC. One outlet is his books, very much a labour of love. Writing for five to ten year olds, JP says his favourite people are children.

“They’re the most honest people,” he says. “For the most part, they’re incapable of lying. They have a magnificent sense of wonder and honesty.”

However, for years, JP and his wife, Belcy, tried to have a child. It was a source of heartache for the couple. They suffered a miscarriage six years ago and a number of failed IVF cycles.

“When my first book (A Bee At UCC) came out, I was very proud of it and happy. But I was also very sad because people I know, friends and colleagues, were sending me pictures of their own children reading my book. I never thought the day would come when I’d read to my own children.”

But that day has come. Twins, Joseph and Corazon, were born to the couple on November 10 last year, two months premature. The little baby boy and girl spent their first two months in the neonatal ward at CUMH.

“They got the most positive care from the most wonderful people. They’re thriving now. I’ve been reading to them every day since the day they were born.

“Any spare time I have now, which is very limited, is spent going around bookshops and charity shops looking for children’s books.”

JP (45) and Belcy (50), a nurse from the Philippines who was recruited to work with the COPE Foundation in Cork, got news last April that Belcy was pregnant.

“We went for a scan. The nurse said there was one very strong heartbeat. And then she told us to take a breath because there was another strong heartbeat. I burst into tears.”

Last November, Belcy went for a routine scan.

“She didn’t come out of hospital. The babies were born two days later. It was very scary. We had the most wonderful obstetrician, Dr Moya McMenamin, and the babies were in the care of consultant paediatrician, Professor Eugene Dempsey.

“You hear a lot about how consultants can be aloof. But these were the most humane people.”

JP met Belcy 15 years ago in Cork.

“She was actually thinking of going to Australia,” he says. But we fell in love almost immediately. We got engaged seven months later and we were married after a year.

“I worship the ground she walks on.”

The proud parents are a little bit annoyed with themselves.

“We wasted time before the babies were born. There were days when we just sat and did nothing. I didn’t read as much as I’d like to have read. Now, there is so little time and it goes so fast. We measure time between feeds.

“I’ve been trying to find time to write more (on a children’s novel as well as short stories). I don’t drink or smoke and I don’t go out much. I only started writing when we lost the first baby.

“The two people who helped me most in finding my voice were writers Madeleine D’Arcy and Danielle McLaughlin. I wouldn’t have anything published without them.”

A Tree At UCC is a sequel to JP’s first book, A Bee At UCC. It started as a lockdown project at the university. Because UCC makes its own honey from hives at the North Mall distillery, with plans to put new hives in the lower grounds of the main campus, JP wanted to tell the story of ‘Alma Nectar’ as UCC’s honey is called.

“The book did very well. It’s in its fifth print run, available in bookshops and every library in Ireland. The Cork School of Clinical Therapies where kids go for speech therapy use the book.

“I was thinking of how to do a second book. We have a very strong arboretum at UCC with 2,500 trees. We have a lot of trees on campus ranging from weeping willows to pine trees and one of the rarest trees in the world, the Wollemia Nobilis. It’s a native tree of Australia. It’s behind the main quadrangle.”

JP says the robot trees in Cork city (which clean pollutants from the air) were being talked about by environmental scientists at UCC.

“They were saying how all efforts to improve sustainability are good but you can’t improve on real trees. Our academic experts say there should be a ban on cars in the city and a focus on planting real trees.”

The conversations inspired JP to write ‘A Tree at UCC.’ He latched onto “the way kids can interpret things in the wrong way.”

“So my story is that the two redwood trees outside the library overhear two scientists talking about the robot trees. The trees get their lines crossed and think the robot trees came from outer space. They have come to Cork and they’re taking over the jobs (of the trees.) The trees set up a committee called ‘The Society for the Preservation of Real Trees.’ The trees explain to children reading the book why trees are an important part of our ecology. The call to action at the end of the book is to encourage children to go and get acorns - and plant their own trees.”

Sounds like a worthy and amusing book.

A Tree At UCC will get a reading at the Cork World Book Fest on April 18 at the Grand Parade library.