It's not every day a Hollywood actor agrees to star in a film based on your life, but Cork author and poet Patrick Galvin seems to be taking it all in his stride.
Shooting on the big-screen adaptation of Song for a Raggy Boy, featuring Aidan Quinn, will begin next month in Co Cork.
An excited Galvin admits he will probably take a trip to Ballyvourney on the first day of shooting.
However, not for him the reported approach of Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling, who supervised even the most minute detail on the set of her blockbuster film.
"It is going to be a little strange to see it finally up and running. I'll be one of the kids in the film, and there is a youngster playing me, and that's a bit odd.
"Also to have Aidan Quinn on board. He is an excellent actor - he was brilliant in Legends of the Fall."
The new film is based on the life of a teacher of Galvin's who fought on the Republican side in the Spanish civil war.
He returned to Ireland after seeing his lover and best friend murdered in the war and took up a teaching position in a Christian Brothers reform school for boys.
Galvin started working on the script for the film five years ago after he was approached by a fellow Cork man, Kevin Byron Murphy.
Murphy was impressed by the character of the teacher and asked Galvin to consider expanding his story in order to bring it to the big screen.
Galvin said his teacher had to overcome many obstacles after he returned from the Spanish civil war.
"He had been on the Republican side and couldn't get a job because of the political climate. He was a good man. Like most of the Irish people who fought in the Spanish civil war he was very idealistic," the 74-year-old Cork author said. "It is a major thrill to have my work adapted for film."
Born in Cork, Galvin sold broadsheets in pubs in his early childhood before leaving school in 1939. He was employed as a messenger boy and projectionist in cinemas in Cork before travelling to Belfast to join the US army - only to make his way into RAF Bomber Command.
"I was under age but had been really impressed with the American army. I lied my way into the RAF. I loved all that glamorous 'Come fly with me' stuff."
Galvin served in the UK and the Middle East before moving to London where he started writing. His multi-faceted career has seen him writing plays for radio, serving as a writer in residence at an English university and reading at the Library of Congress in Washington DC.
His three-part autobiography will be reprinted later this year by New Island Books.
Meanwhile Kevin Byron Murphy of Titian Red Pictures said Song for a Raggy Boy would be a cross between Dead Poets' Society and Sleepers.
Murphy read Galvin's book and was intrigued by the tension between the teacher and his nemesis, the Christian Brother.
The producer said the film would have a certain resonance in light of the scandal surrounding the church in relation to institutional abuse in State-sponsored schools.
"This has never been dealt with in Irish film. The State had responsibility to these children. That said, there were a lot of good people in the church," Murphy said.
"This film isn't all dark. There is a lot of humour in Patrick's writing."
Patrick, he said, celebrates the life and characters around him with great spirit. His is a comedy peculiar to Cork, a delight in word-play and story-telling.
Funding for the picture has been made available by the Irish Film Board, Subotica Entertainment and a number of Danish investors.
Aidan Quinn is currently completing another film in Dublin. Murphy said it made a huge difference to the film to have an actor of Quinn's stature on the payroll.
"We can reach a larger audience with him.
"We want this film to be the most important Irish film of the year. With the likes of Aidan and Scottish actor, Iain Glen, in the film we can do that."
Song for a Raggy Boy is expected to be in Irish cinemas by the autumn of 2003.