The Upside-Down Lighthouse with Paddy Donnelly

From multi-award-winning Northern Irish author and illustrator Paddy Donnelly, The Upside-Down Lighthouse is a beautiful new picture book story about the magic and wonder of nature, sea and wildlife. Like many of Paddy’s stories, it is also a heartwarming tale of younger and older generations coming together in adventure, friendship and imagination.

The inspiration behind the book was a real Upside-Down Lighthouse on Rathlin Island.
“The Causeway Coast has a never-ending number of inspirational places, and one place I love to visit is Rathlin Island. Growing up on Ballycastle beach, I would gaze out at this island full of magic and mystery. In the evenings, I would see its three lighthouses flashing across the sea. One in particular, on the west coast of the island, was always a little more intriguing – because it had been built upside down! Stuck halfway down the cliff face, it is surrounded by a huge bird colony of puffins, guillemots, kittiwakes, fulmars and razorbills. A truly stunning place to visit, the unique lighthouse was built this way due to the low-lying fog which is common around the island. If the light had been installed at the top of the cliff, ships would never see it! For this story, I wanted to take Meara and Grandad out on a boat to explore the magical sea life in Irish waters. Meara wants to discover why the lighthouse is the way it is. She also finds out that she can learn about surprising life above and below the waves if she looks at things from a different angle sometimes.”
Paddy Donnelly