A weekend that changed my life – a personal account of the weekend as written by Caoimhe McDermott Quinn:

The best weekend of my life began at three o’ clock on a Saturday afternoon. My family and I arrived at my school to find a helicopter had landed on the football pitch! Don’t know if that was in the original plan but it was cool!!! Some of my friends and neighbours came to wave us off – they even got the opportunity to check out the helicopter. It seemed like it was someone else experiencing it.

For the past nine months, I had travelled to Crumlin hospital by train and a few times by car but I used get sick in the car and it took us about four hours to get there and on that amazing Saturday I was whisked up to Dublin in less than an hour – unreal. Mr. Mooney was very kind to have brought us up in his helicopter and I am very thankful and will never forget it…

In those fifty minutes in the air I saw Ireland more beautiful than I will possibly ever see again.

When we landed we were greeted by Peter Harris (founder of the bubblegum club) and to my immense delight Derek Landy, author of the awesome Skulduggery Pleasant series.

Wow, my mum talks about how she’d love to meet George Clooney or Brad Pitt – this was my moment and it lasted the whole day. Derek Landy is fantastic.  Derek drove Peter, Fergus (my brother) and me in his really cool car, to the Royal Marine Hotel, Dun Laoghaire in which we were staying.  Derek stayed with us all evening, telling us all about the Skulduggery Pleasant books he wrote and about his next book and its characters and some of the plots but that’s a secret so I can’t tell any of it to ye!!! He answered all my questions and told us all about himself and how he started writing and about his celebrity lifestyle.  I had him autograph all my Skulduggery books and some of my friends books also!! He didn’t mind. I love reading and it was really cool hearing how he started off and how he gets his ideas. I would have listened to him for ages. He sounds like his books read. It was surreal.

At The Royal Marine Hotel, Dun Laoghaire, we were greeted by the manager and staff as if we were royalty. My parents were seriously impressed with the hotel and all the effort put in by The Bubblegum Club and the staff of the entire hotel.

The manager escorted us to the Frank Sinatra suite. It was amazing. It was a penthouse!! Class. They had certainly pulled out all the stops. Refreshments were waiting for us all and Derek stayed and entertained us for the evening. What a night! The marketing staff had put together a gift bag for us with all sorts of cool stuff. All our dining and room service was complimentary as well!! The Bubblegum Club had more surprises for us too. I was on cloud nine! They organised activities for my brother and sister and dad while I was at the RDS. They have also organised a walk on part with Fair City for me but of course I still haven’t done that yet as I am still recovering from this adventure!  I still feel as if I dreamed parts of it…continue