The Buddha of Ballyhuppahaun

Inspired by the arrival of the Rainbow Travellers to the Slieve Bloom Mountains in the summer of 1993, The Buddha of Ballyhuppahaun by Johnny Renko (aka journalist, John Whelan) is strongly influenced by the satirical classics Gulliver's Travels and Animal Farm and also draws on the parables and philosophy of Zen Flesh, Zen Bones.

"I have always wanted to write this book and tell this story and it's been kicking around inside my head for 17 years now. When I lost my job I finally got the time and space to knuckle down, stop talking about it and finally do it. I came up with the title back at that European Rainbow Gathering near Rosenallis and the following year I went to Slovenia to attend the gathering there in 1994 and live with the Rainbow Travellers for a month," explains the author.

"The book is written under the pen name Johnny Renko because, as one friend put it, I am followed around by the shadow of John Whelan, editor and journalist and all the politics that entails. While the book has its genesis here in Laois, in the Slieve Blooms, in the midlands, it is nonetheless an ageless and international story and by using a pen name I wanted in some small way to remove the parochial and the personal, as the plot could unfold anywhere for anyone," John Whelan sets out his stall.

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