Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?: ‘hilarious, tender, absurd, delightful and charming’ Nina Stibbe - Softcover

O'Reilly, Seamas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0708899242 ISBN 13: 9780708899243

Publisher: Fleet, 2021

Synopsis

'A gorgeous memoir' Pandora Sykes

'Tender, sad and side-splittingly funny' Annie MacManus

'A heartfelt tribute to an alarmingly large family held together by a quietly heroic father' Arthur Mathews, co-creator of Father Ted and Toast of London

Séamas O'Reilly's mother died when he was five, leaving him, his ten brothers and sisters and their beloved father in their sprawling bungalow in rural Derry. It was the 1990s; the Troubles were a background rumble (most of the time), and Séamas at that point was more preoccupied with dinosaurs, Star Wars and the actual location of heaven than the political climate.

Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? is a book about a family of argumentative, loud, musical, sarcastic, grief-stricken siblings, shepherded into adulthood by a man whose foibles and reticence were matched only by his love for his children and his determination that they would flourish. It is the moving, often amusing and completely unsentimental story of a boy growing up in a family bonded by love, loss and fairly relentless mockery.

'Not only hilarious, tender, absurd, delightful and charming, but written with such skill as to render it unforgettable' Nina Stibbe, author of Reasons to be Cheerful

'Grotesquely funny' Sophie Heawood, author of The Hungover Games

About this title

About the Author

Seamas O'Reilly is a columnist for the Observer and writes about media and politics for the Irish Times, New Statesman, Guts and VICE. He shot to a kind-of prominence with a range of online endeavours including 'Remembering Ireland', a parody of Irish nostalgia sites, which featured entirely invented moments from Irish history. In 2016, he posted a long Twitter thread about the effects Brexit would have on Northern Ireland, which led to his first political writing for the New Statesman. Later on that year, his exasperated reviews of the novels of erstwhile footballer and manager Steve Bruce led to his participation in events with Guardian Football Weekly and various others. His most recent viral sensation was a thread about the time he inadvertently found himself on ketamine while in a room serving drinks to his boss's boss's boss and the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese. Seamas lives in Hackney with his family.

From the Inside Flap

Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? is Seamas O'Reilly's memoir of growing up as one of eleven children in rural Northern Ireland in the 1990s after the death of their mother when Seamas was five. He delves into his family - his pleasingly eccentric, reticent but deeply loving father; his rambunctious siblings, intent on enforcing a byzantine age-based hierarchy; and the numerous bewildering friends, relations and neighbours who blew in and out to 'help'.

Did Ye Hear Mammy Died is the story of a boy growing up in a family bonded by loss, love and mockery, set against the backdrop of Northern Ireland in the 1990s.

[Quotes tc]

Edition details

• Publisher: Fleet
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0708899242
• ISBN 13: 9780708899243
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240