Born in Belfast, he holidayed in Castlerock as a child and took inspiration from Downhill House for some of his books including The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
The Ross O'Carroll-Kelly character, created by Paul Howard, lives off the glory of winning a Leinster Senior Cup final medal with the fictional school "Castlerock College" in the novel The Miseducation of Ross O'Carroll-Kelly.
When this name was given to the then new railway station, residents of Castlerock, then also known as The Elbow and on the opposite bank of the Oreti River, brought the matter to George Lumsden of the Otago Provincial Council.