Tom Crean: The Brave Explorer

Kathi Fatti Burke is a Dublin-based illustrator, a member of the Irish Guild of Illustrators and the Association of Illustrators (UK), as well as an Irish trivia obsessive. Map-making has been a prominent feature in her work, a trademark that she has become known for in Irish illustration circles. Her first book, Irelandopedia,won the Tubridy Show Listeners’ Choice Award at the Irish Book Awards 2015 and was a national bestseller. She lives in Dublin.

John Burke is Fatti’s dad. He is a retired primary school teacher and was Teaching Principal of Passage East National School from 1980 to 2009. He has taught all age groups during his career, but focused most of his teaching on the older classes. He has always had a special interest in environmental studies and local history. He is a board member of Waterford Teacher’s Education Centre and Secretary of Barony of Gaultier Historical Society. He has been an office holder with Waterford GAA and Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann. He was not born in the Middle Stone Age, New Stone Age or even the Iron Age (despite what Fatti says), but was in fact born in 1946. He lives in Waterford.