Bring Us Back an Oul' Bucket of Ice — Michael Collins

First and foremost, despite the cover, this is not a children's book. It is a fun, feel good book for all ages, full of craic, food and music, seasoned with a little mystery, intrigue and bedevilment.

Why would a group of people and technological iShillelaghs, from a mysterious town in Ireland called Eirestown, be travelling towards a volcano in the South Pole, on board a high altitude hot air balloon known as The Eirestown POP?

The answer is simple: They are trying to save the world from a man-made disaster.

Not since Noah and his ark has the earth faced a flood of such biblical proportions.

And all because William McCoy The Third decided to create a planetary housing boom.

The Irish Taoiseach's response to the impending crisis is almost as comical as the American President's. While the President promises the world all the help his great nation can muster, before heading to safety in the mountains, the Taoiseach promises everyone in Ireland a free drink, initiating the biggest party the world has ever known. But the Prime Minister of England has more pressing concerns, as Prince Phillip paddles down the Mall with Queen Elizabeth II beside him in a rubber dinghy, trying to make Scotland before nightfall.

Now that William has implemented phase one of his project - which was to engineer a global, environmental disaster on a par with the meteor strike which wiped the dinosaurs out 60 million years ago - the earth, and the existence of humanity itself, balances on a knife edge.

Are we really to believe that the simpletons of Eirestown, as William calls them, can outwit him? Or will other forces play a part in the final showdown?

Welcome to the first Eirestown Féile (pronounced fay-la) which is Gaelic for a festival of words.