He was educated at Terenure College, before heading to Trinity College, Dublin, and studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where he won the Curtis Brown prize. But it was during his time at Trinity that he began to get published. To pay his way at that stage of his career, he worked atWaterstone's, typing up his drafts by night.
He is represented by the literary agent Simon Trewin at United Agents in London, United Kingdom.
His most recent children's novel, Noah Barleywater Runs Away, reached no.1 on the Irish Bestseller Chart in October 2010. His seventh novel for adults,The Absolutist, was published in the UK in May 2011, and was serialised on BBC Radio 4.