From grief to the Snotiverse: How Andrew McGinley brought his children's imaginary world to life
Andrew McGinley and his children.
For a man who has endured what no parent should ever have to face, Andrew McGinley is laughing again.
The source of that joy is a cast of characters inspired and created by his three children before they were killed by their mother at the family home in Newcastle, Co Dublin, on January 24, 2020.
Before their deaths, Conor, 9, and Darragh, 7, spent hours drawing and writing about imaginary characters of their own creation, often with suggestions and ideas from their younger sister, Carla, 3.
Now, Mr McGinley has brought those characters to life in a series of children's books, the first of which he is in the process of launching.
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Titled , the book is based on a character invented by his sons called Pick Your Nose Prestin.
It is set in the "Snotiverse", a secret world responsible for the operation of every human nose.
“Writing the book has also done something I did not anticipate,” says Mr McGinley.
“Spending so much time immersed in the imagination and humour that inspired the original has been enormously positive for me personally.
“Rather than being a project defined by the circumstances in which I lost Conor, Darragh, and Carla, it has become a celebration of who they were, three wonderfully creative children with ideas, humour, and imaginations of their own.”
The three children were killed at the family home in January 2020.
Mr McGinley's wife, Deirdre Morley, a paediatric nurse, was found not guilty in 2021 of the murder of Conor, Darragh, and Carla, by reason of insanity.
Mr McGinley established As Darragh Did and Snowman for Carla, initiatives that raised funds in memory of Darragh and Carla while helping to continue their legacy.
Before winding up the charities earlier this year, Mr McGinley helped raise more than €500,000 in his children's memory for around 300 community groups across the country
He also created Conor's Clips, a social media account dedicated to Conor, who dreamed of becoming a YouTube star. The account shared short videos of family life before the children's deaths.
He says: “The funds provided enabled real, tangible improvements in communities nationwide and helped small organisations deliver meaningful change where it mattered most.
“None of this would have been possible without the extraordinary generosity, compassion, and belief of the donors, volunteers, community, groups, and supporters who stood behind As Darragh Did from the very beginning.
“What started as an idea rooted in grief became something powerful because people chose to care, to help, and to act.
“Every donation given, every event organised, every message of encouragement, and every hour volunteered helped turn Darragh’s spirit of kindness into lasting impact.
“That collective support has created a legacy that will live on in communities across Ireland.”
The children’s book is a new venture for Mr McGinley. He says it has helped him laugh again for the first time since the deaths of his children.
He said he was in his sons’ bedrooms a few months after their deaths when he noticed a large plastic container crammed with comics and notes they had written.
“I was going through their things and I found this container and I brought it down to the coffee table in the sitting room.
“I took out each comic, each drawing, each scribble, and I just went through them all.
“One day, I found three pieces of paper and on them were drawings and the outline of a character they had developed called Pick Your Nose Prestin.”
Tears welled up in his eyes as he looked down at the pages, and a wave of emotion hit him as he imagined his sons giggling to each other as they created this character.
Other characters from thousands of pieces of paper they drew doodles and wrote on have since inspired a range of other characters and books, including one about “an escaped fart”.
Mr McGinley says: “They had a load of artwork. They were very creative kids.
“They had a lot of homemade comics, and were forever asking me to staple pages together to help them make comics.
“I would just love to get a publishing deal just so that I could just concentrate on writing.
“I've another character that I've taken and I've completed one book on that.
“After , I have three more ready to go.”
Mr McGinley says he is grateful to have another side to a life dominated by the awful loss of his children, as well as having to deal with lawyers, his campaigns, the HSE, and the Department of Health.
He says: “To be able to sit down and just lose yourself in a story — I loved telling the kids stories. I used to make up stories for them.
“Writing these stories now brings me back to those times and it’s just a wonderful release.
“I remember one day sitting over in the cafe, and I'm writing. The guy beside me is ringing his office about a client order that hasn't come in and he’s telling the person on the other line that the client's going to kill him and he was very stressed out.
“Then on the other table to the other side, there were two women chatting about one of their sons who had been having issues with drugs and she was at her wits' end and I'm sitting in the middle.
“I was thinking about how I've stepped away from dealing with the more complicated aspects of my life, and I'm just here, sitting, writing about... the Snotiverse.
“It was such a release for me, and I think it was a good outlet for my humour.
“The kids always had seen me as a messer. I was always messing and joking and laughing with them.
“You'd lose your sense of humour with what had happened, but this, for me, was an outlet and a way of making it as funny as possible and an outlet for my humour again.”
The book had been due for publication in September, but its release was delayed after Department of Health officials sought a meeting with Mr McGinley.
He has been battling to have the scope of the inquests into his children’s deaths extended.
“I was due to launch the book then so I could get it to children coming back to school after the summer holidays,” he says.
“But when they got in touch, I thought it was too good an opportunity to miss and I assured them I would leave every day free throughout the month of September.
“But the meeting didn’t happen and I still don’t know when it will happen.
“However much I want to meet them, I can’t continue to put my life on hold for them.”
Mr McGinley is due to meet officials after Independent TD for Dublin Mid-West Paul Gogarty urged Taoiseach Micheál Martin to investigate why HSE lawyers sought to limit the scope of the children's inquests.
Mr Gogarty said there should be an examination of whether the HSE's actions "constitute undue interference contrary to the public interest".
Mr McGinley, who has since met Mr Martin after his case was raised in the Dáil, is seeking to have two years of his former wife's psychiatric care examined at the inquests.
He has argued the inquiry should consider all relevant evidence from the two years before the deaths, including every occasion on which Ms Morley received psychiatric care.
He says there is "strong public interest in the scope of the inquest being extended”.
Dublin District Coroner Myra Cullinane said she does not regard this as “necessary or permissible in the context of the legitimate scope of these inquests".
She made the decision after receiving submissions from a number of interested parties, including the HSE.
“When I told officials at the department that I would be free in September, they then asked for an agenda, which I supplied them with,” says Mr McGinley.
“I also supplied them with background notes against the various points I want to talk to them about.
“The points I want to talk to them about include improved patient care, about the inquest and the way the HSE has behaved so far, and the management — or mismanagement — of pharmaceuticals.
“Basically, I want to discuss all the stuff that can hopefully help patients and help families and protect children.”
He adds: “I have made it as easy as possible for the officials in the department.
“I kept September free for them but it wasn’t until I emailed them on October 2, and asked what happened that someone came back to me and said that I should have a meeting at some stage.
"Discussions now are around what they would like to discuss, rather than what I would like to discuss.
“But while I will meet them, I am now going ahead with the book launch as I am now very much on the back foot with the delay.”
In raising the deaths of Mr McGinley's three children in the Seanad earlier this year, Independent senator Aubrey McCarthy said legislation had “absolutely failed” them and the State owes it to their memory to reform the law.
The “ambiguity” across a variety of acts had, he said, had “catastrophic” consequences for the children.
He told senators when clinical decisions about a patient have implications for the patient’s children or their co-parents’, then the co-parents must have the right to be fully informed.
“No clinician should have the authority automatically to make decisions in isolation where the outcomes may directly impact the safety, the welfare, and the rights of children and the other parent,” he said.
"Yet this is precisely what happened in the McGinley case.”
He said two acts needed reforming: The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015, and the Children First Act 2015, which placed key elements of the Children First: National Guidance framework on a statutory footing.
It emerged during Ms Morley's trial she had been receiving treatment for mental illness and had concealed the full extent of her condition from Mr McGinley. The court heard she was suffering from a psychotic and depressive episode when the children died.
Since then, Mr McGinley has been campaigning for it to be mandatory for people to be involved in the mental health treatment of their partners in relationships where there are children.
He is heading up the campaign along with Cork woman Una Butler. Her husband John took his own life after he murdered their children Zoe, 6, and Ella, 2, on November 16, 2010, in Ballycotton.
Mr McGinley says: “If I could spend the rest of my days writing children's books, it would bring me contentment.
“I would find it hard to say it will bring me happiness, but it would bring me contentment, and it's something I love to do.
“I used to make up stories for the kids when we were driving to Donegal.
“I put the first book out to a test audience of 37 kids, and I had 35 rave reviews.
“The two that didn't like it were two girls who didn’t like that it was about snot."
He adds: "Writing this book has been so therapeutic. It has been more therapeutic than the counselling I have had since my children were killed.
"I only started while I was wading through the first copy I had been given of the un-redacted coroner's report.
"It took me into another world that was far less complicated than the one I was in at the time, and remain in to a greater or lesser extent."
- will be formally launched on November 5, and is currently available on Amazon and Buythebook.ie.
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