![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/4864002_1_articleinlinemobile_ECHO_20FEATURES_20WoW_202025_20Irish_20Fairy_20Tales-33_1_.jpg\" "\\"The")
The new books, which come with mermaid and dragon’s tails, were two years in the making.\u00a0<\/p>\nWith more than 20 years of experience working with children, Stef McSherry was inspired to create her newest product by the kids who take part in her classes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just love dressing up and pretending they\u2019re somebody else, or going off on an adventure, and that made me go, \u2018I\u2019d love to do something like that,\u2019\u201d says the Cork-based founder of Kinderama, which runs multi-activity classes in schools and childcare settings.<\/p>\n
McSherry has just launched Irish Fairy Tails, storybooks for children that encourage imagination, play, and come with a matching costume tail. There are two stories, The Dragon Tale – about a shy dragon who learns that his fire can be a force for good, and The Mermaid Tale – about a curious mermaid who discovers the power of asking for help.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a mermaid story and a dragon story, but they mirror each other,\u201d explains McSherry. \u201cIt\u2019s a shy dragon that\u2019s scared about his fire, so he hides away in a cage, and then a mermaid gets stuck in some nets, and she needs some help.\u201d The mermaid looks to the fire-breathing dragon for help, but he\u2019s afraid he will hurt her.<\/p>\n
Each book comes with a wearable tail to help bring the story to life for children.<\/p>\n
McSherry got the idea for these costumes from the kids she teaches through her Kinderama classes. \u201c<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s bits of sport\u2026 it\u2019s all kinds of imagination, so that they are just having loads of fun,\u201d she says. \u201cThere are loads of costumes in it, and that\u2019s where the idea for the mermaids and dragons came from.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new books, which come with mermaid and dragon’s tails, were two years in the making.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was important to McSherry that the costumes were high quality, durable, and safe. \u201cI wanted [the fabric] to be inherently flame-retardant, rather than covering fabric in flame-retardant stuff. So we ended up using wipe-clean leather. That\u2019s what makes the costume so soft and shimmery, but it also means mums don\u2019t have to wash them,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
As well as promoting imaginative play, the books convey messages of encouragement to young children.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the mermaid one, she\u2019s scared to ask for help. She doesn\u2019t want to ask for help. But you know that if you do put your hand up and ask for help, you might even make a friend,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s tied back again to Kinderama, and we\u2019re always trying to give little messages of confidence, that if you\u2019re shy, you can still join in.\u201d<\/p>\n
On every page, there is one word written in Irish and also spelled phonetically. This was important to McSherry, who grew up in Wiltshire in the UK, and now lives in Cork with her husband and two children.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy kids are Irish, and although they speak Irish really well\u2026 I didn\u2019t know how to read the words. It\u2019s not like you can sound them out the way you learn English,\u201d she says. \u201cSo there\u2019s the Irish spelling, and then it\u2019s written out phonetically, so that if there\u2019s lots of non-Irish speakers now raising kids that are speaking Irish, they can read the word properly too.\u201d<\/p>\n
The books have officially gone on sale.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cLots of people have already said, \u2018Gosh, these would be lovely presents to send to kids that are living overseas,\u2019\u201d says McSherry. \u201cMy sister-in-law just bought them for her brother. He\u2019s in Australia with two little ones.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
The stories are ideal for any children who enjoy dress-up and imaginative play, says the author.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know sometimes parents find the imaginative play quite difficult, whereas now with this, you can read the story, and then you\u2019ve got your costume to put on, and then you can say, \u2018Right, now, you be the dragon and I\u2019ll be the mermaid\u2019… it\u2019s like an invitation to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
As well as the Irish Fairy Tails website, stockists include Pinocchio\u2019s toy shop in Cork city and Sensational Kids, a multi-disciplinary children\u2019s therapy enterprise with centres in Kildare, Mayo, Monaghan and Clonakilty in West Cork. \u201cWe\u2019re being stocked in their shop, which directly feeds their charity,\u201d she says. \u201cThey loved the fact these costumes, kids can wear them outside of their clothes. So if you\u2019ve got any kind of sensory issues, it\u2019s not like you\u2019re putting on scratchy fabric or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
McSherry spent two years developing these products, with the support of the ACORNS programme for female entrepreneurs and the Local Enterprise Office. \u201cI really thought, naively probably\u2026 Oh yeah, this should take a couple of months,\u201d she admits. \u201cI thought \u2018this will be easy, I\u2019ll find somebody to make them, and off we go\u2019. And no, it\u2019s taken two years. I\u2019m really pleased with the way they are now. They look fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n
She hopes to continue growing her new venture in 2026. \u201cI do have more stories, so maybe towards the end of next year I\u2019d love to add to the range, like that\u2019s where I love to go with my creative head.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With more than 20 years of experience working with children, Stef McSherry was inspired to create her newest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[2736,18,19,17,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-190284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-cork-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115580649461059451","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}