Mother who draws on daughter's lunchbox napkins every day to give her a smile becomes online sensation

A mother who draws on her daughter's lunchbox napkins every day to cheer her up at school has become an online sensation.

Martha Fitzpatrick, 45, started doodling creations for her daughter Ailbhe when she was struggling at school.

Ailbhe, now 13, is autistic and her mother wanted to remind her that she was thinking of her during the day.

Her drawings have now become so popular that she has her own Twitter page with 6,000 followers.

“I did it one day and she loved it," she told the Standard. “They started becoming more and more elaborate.

“It’s a bit of mental arithmetic - I like having to come up with something every day.”

The drawings started to gather an online following when her husband, Aidan Comerford, a comedian, began posting them on his Twitter account.

Aidan wrote a book, Cornflakes for Dinner, about meeting Martha and raising two daughters with autism together in Meath, Ireland. Ailbhe has a younger sister called Sophie.

The posts were so successful that he decided to make a separate Twitter account for the drawings called Martha’s Napkins.

A recent napkin about Storm Lorenzo garnered more than 400 likes.

Ailbhe is now in secondary school, but Martha says she still loves the napkins.

“One day somebody saw it in her schoolbag," the mother-of-two said.

“The teacher had a look and showed it to the class. Ailbhe was horrified.

"I asked her if she wanted me to stop, but she said “no”, she liked it.”

Martha usually thinks about the idea for each napkin overnight, and tries to keep them topical.

However, she only gives herself five minutes in the morning to make each drawing.

“I think I would overthink it and keep correcting it if I had more time”, she said.

Martha makes simpler napkin drawings for her younger daughter, Sophie, 12.

Sophie has minimal speech, but loves seeing herself drawn as her favourite cartoon characters.

There are no plans to make a book out of the drawings, although Martha says she is open to offers.

“I don’t want to go looking, but if somebody was to come to me and ask if I was interested I would say absolutely," she said.