Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?

by Séamas O'Reilly

A heart-warming and hilarious family memoir of growing up as one of eleven children raised by a single dad in Northern Ireland at the end of the Troubles

After the untimely death of his mother, five-year-old Séamas O'Reilly and his ten siblings were left to the care of their loving but understandably beleaguered father. In this thoroughly delightful memoir, we follow O'Reilly and the rest of his rowdy clan as they learn to cook, clean, do the laundry, and struggle (often hilariously) to keep the household running smoothly and turn into adults in the absence of the woman who had held them together. Along the way, we see O'Reilly through various adventures: There's the time the family's windows were blown out by an IRA bomb; the time a priest blessed their thirteen-seater caravan before they took off for a holiday on which they narrowly escaped death; the time O'Reilly worked as a guide in a leprechaun museum during the recession; and of course, the time he inadvertently found himself on ketamine while serving drinks to the president of Ireland.

Through it all, the lovable, ginger-haired O'Reilly regales us with his combination of wit, absurdity, and tenderness, creating a charming and unforgettable portrait of an oddly gigantic family's search for some semblance of normalcy.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Ireland, Audiobook, Humor, Irish Literature, Biography

214 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 22, 2021

About the author

Séamas O’Reilly is a columnist for the Observer and writes about media and politics for the Irish Times, New Statesman, Guts, and VICE. He lives in Hackney with his family.

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real Rating: 4.75* of five, rounded up because my sides still ache

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: First, read this:

Thankfully, he laughs heartily throughout, and his main objections are less of taste or decency and more points of fact he felt I needed hearing. Besides telling me, several more times, to slow down, most of his input cleaves close to the pedantic. Such is the case with my description of the priest who came to bless our 26-foot-long caravan before the 3,200 mile round trip we took to Spain, the year after my mother died. I describe the oddness of the scene, the priest swinging incense around our giant caravan, in full vestments, conducting himself with the stately grace of an altogether more solemn occasion. “He wasn’t in full vestments” Daddy interjects, a hint of mocking laughter in his voice. “He was wearing a sotan” he says, with an incredulity that suggests I’d committed a faux pas equivalent to forgetting my own name.

The fact that I’d misidentified this sotan—an only marginally less formal, long cassock type affair—is sufficient for my father to consider me very badly caught out. He denies outright that he ever killed a mouse with a tiny plastic bottle of holy water in the shape of the virgin Mary, and seems particularly aggrieved that I keep saying he knows every priest in Ireland. This he decries as emblematic of my addiction to overstatement—“Séamas, there should be a disclaimer on every page”—before suggesting a figure like 70-80% would be more realistic.

That's from the LitHub piece about Author Séamas reading parts of his memoir to his blinded-by-diabetes Daddy. Because, in the end, you're not going to thank me for ruining the fun of this read by quoting some parts I highlighted to you. I think you're best going into this read, and I really, really hope you *will* go into this read, without too much explicit information.

You already know the bones, the author's one of eleven children...I need a lie-down every time I think about that...raised by a man alone. Modern sensibilities have it that men can't raise children, and that there's such a thing as overpopulation, and dear goddesses below us why the hell didn't she just kick him out of bed?! But to the devil with all that, dive into the absolutely astonishing O'Reilly family's beautifully bizarre world as remembered by the ninth of the eleven souls born to two people whose love was, I am shocked to say, well attested by all and sundry. Especially their children.

The author being gainfully employed, and even a success at his career, and none of his siblings having gone to prison, well I'd say they did very well, those delightfully out-of-step parents. I'd also say, given Séamas's astonishing capacity for reading, that the whole ecosystem of family was a healthy, if really weird, one. Who else had a Daddy whose response to an IRA bombing that shattered some of their remote house's windows was to be, in a word, unconcerned? Larger implications, political ideas, the safety of his family, all came down to "if I panic and go to pieces there is no hope of ever making all of them feel safe again." And he chose their sense of serenity, of faith that the world would be right, over his probable fears and sleeplessness...but he held no brief with hate, or with unkindness of any sort.

What stands out for me, reading this memoir of a man so much younger than myself and from such a widely divergent background, is how included I felt as I read the anecdotes. I was a guest being given the lay of the land. I was the stranger who, accidentally wandering into the ambit of the family, was welcomed with the greatest possible camaraderie and bonhomie. My drink glass was never empty and the snacks were endless, so my new friends were set to make me one of the neighbors and friends whose bemused orbits are noted and needed without breaking the harmony within.

I am so happy I read this memoir of a five-year-old "half-orphan" and his trip through this one wild and precious life (bless you, Mary Oliver, for that perfect locution) among a family he clearly loves and likes. If I were just slightly more evil, I'd be so jealous of him I'd spoiler all his jokes and tread on his every punchline. But I know when I've been offered a beautiful gift. This is one.

So, Joe O'Reilly...I know you're not going to read my words about your lad Séamas...but you should know that your work, the hard slogging work of being alive when your mate is dead...is the reason we all have a very fine gift in your son. In his gifts, so many that owe their existence and their potency to you.

A glass of cheer to you, sir.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Seven would have been considered crisply eccentric, and nine plainly mad. To be one of eleven was singularly demented."

Had to laugh when I read this as I have seven children and now that I'm older I'll take the eccentric definition as a compliment. Seamus was baby five when his mammy died and he wasn't the youngest in this large family. Didn't understand death, what it meant. Where was heaven? Why was everyone crying? Sad, without doubt but this is not a sad book. There is so much humor, love, all good things, in this very special book.

A father who took everything in stride, was there for his children in every way. Above and beyond, despite the chaos of such a very large family. A chaos to which I can relate. The love, admiration for his father shines through as does his love for his siblings This takes place at the end of the Troubles so that too is a factor.

Amazing story, a true story and one well worth reading, whether one comes from a large family or not.

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Séamas O'Reilly was the ninth of eleven children, and nearly six-years-old when his mammy died of breast cancer. The author regales us with not only memories of his beloved mum, but of the father who took over raising the wee ones (aged two to seventeen) after the untimely death of his wife.

As the rather offbeat title implies, O'Reilly manages to find the humor in the situation. I laughed aloud many times, as did my husband when I read the bits out loud to him. Here's one we both enjoyed:

. . . there's no greater love than that between a taciturn rural Irishman and the dog he shouts at all day.

This is truly a memoir done right, where the author realizes that his story is not only about him, but all the people in his life who made him what he is. A wonderful, and surprisingly uplifting read. Recommended!


Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for sharing this read.

[Johann (jobis89) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really funny and touching account of one boy growing up in Northern Ireland following the death of his mother. Really relatable. And a true celebration of his father!

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ramped up to 4 stars because of the humor. As you can imagine, the antics of 11 children are amusing. The author was #9 of 11 children and was only 5 when his mother died, so his father had to go it alone. Living in Ireland during the time of the "troubles", being devout Catholics, and just coping with day to day life in such a huge family was chaotic. This author has a way with words, and there were a few times when I had to stop reading just to laugh uncontrollably. The real beauty of this book is the author's love and respect for his father who was a superman of sorts, and is a beautiful tribute.

[Donna Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seamas O’Reilly is an Irish journalist; as far as I can tell, this is his first book. He was just five years old, one of the youngest of eleven children, when cancer claimed his mother, leaving his father—an extraordinary man, if even half of what Seamas tells us is accurate—to raise them all. This is their story. My thanks go to Net Galley; Little, Brown and Company; and Fleet Audio for the review copies. This memoir is for sale now.

Of all the ways in which one can write about the death of a parent, this is one that I never considered. O’Reilly describes his family, his mother’s demise and the impact it has on his family and the community; and the subsequent years of his own and his family members’ lives, and he is hysterically funny. How he manages to achieve this without breaching the boundaries of good taste and respect is nothing short of pure alchemy. Somehow he finds just the right combination of irreverent humor, poignant remembrance, and affection, and it’s pitch perfect.

His finest bits are assigned to his father. I’m giving you just one example, because I want you to experience everything else in context. This isn’t his most amusing anecdote, but it’s a worthy sample of his voice. After heaping praise on him for other things, he tells us:

“He is alarmingly cocky when it comes to his skill at killing mice, a species he hates with a malevolent, blackhearted glee. It’s an odd facet of his character; a man regarded by his friends as one of the kindest, gentlest humans on earth, and by mice as Josef Stalin. He takes particular joy in improvising weapons for the purpose, and has killed rodents with a shoe, a book, and at least one bottle of holy water shaped like the Virgin Mary. He famously dispatched one with a single throw of a portable phone, without even getting out of bed. I know this because he woke us so we could inspect the furry smudge on his bedroom wall…”

I have both the audiobook and the DRC, and rather than alternate between the two, or listening to the audio and then skimming the DRC for quotations and to answer any of my own questions, which is my usual method, I chose to read them both separately, because this story is good enough to read twice, a thing I seldom do these days. Whereas I usually think that having the author read his own audio is ideal, since the author himself knows exactly where to place emphasis and deliver the piece the way it is intended, this time I am ambivalent. O’Reilly speaks faster than any audio reader I’ve yet heard, and he doesn’t vary his pitch much, and as a result, there are some funny bits that I miss the first time through; I am doubly glad to have it in print also. As the audio version progresses, I grow more accustomed to his speaking style, and I miss less than I did at the outset. Nevertheless, if the reader has a choice and doesn’t greatly prefer audiobooks, I recommend print over audio. Ideally, I suggest doing as I did and acquiring both versions.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this will be among the most delightful books published in 2022. Highly recommended.

[Louis Muñoz · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5, rounding down to 3. That's a respectable rating, it means I found the book worthwhile. I had hoped for a bit more, though I'm not sure I can tell you exactly what that was. However, I could see myself recommending this book to some folks.

[Iona Sharma]

Séamas O'Reilly is that guy who wrote the twitter thread about meeting the president of Ireland Mary McAleese while high on ketamine, who is also notable for being one of eleven children raised by a single father. This is a memoir of his childhood growing up in Northern Ireland with the Troubles rumbling away in the background, and it's short but sweet - it doesn't try to be a blow-by-blow but each chapter covers some incident or theme, and gives an overall impression of what feels like a vanished world even though O'Reilly is only in his thirties. I liked it, plus of course it's very funny.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

In the vein of Jenny Lawson’s work, this is part memoir, part humor book, mining the sometimes dark experiences of the author’s life for absurdities. O’Reilly grew up the 9th of 11 children in an abnormally large, very Catholic Northern Irish family. His mom died from cancer when he was five, leaving his dad alone with their four sons and seven daughters, aged 2 to 17. The blurb is off-base—they had a housekeeper well before her death; no one is scrambling to learn to cook or do the laundry. Instead the book takes up various topics (the chapters are disconnected enough to feel a bit like an essay collection strung together into a book): the author’s own coping with a loss he was too young to understand at the time (hence cheerily approaching mourners with the question in the title); some family history; a family trip to Spain; various media interviews of the clan; his dad’s extensive catalogue of taped movies; the author’s experience of the Troubles as a young child.

Overall I enjoyed this. It did make me laugh out loud, though there were also jokes that fell flat for me or seemed overly labored. The more serious aspects seem thoughtful and heartfelt, and not having read anything else set in Northern Ireland, this was a good way to learn a bit about the place. Everyone O’Reilly knows seems to have taken bombings pretty much in stride; when he was a toddler, the IRA blew up an unmanned customs post adjoining their property, and though the family had to evacuate for several days, it was so unremarkable that he didn’t learn about it until much later. Also, as a tribute to the author’s dad—the primary figure here besides himself—this is a good one; he comes across as adorably eccentric, reminding me of some of my own relatives while coming to life on the page as a unique personality of his own.

That said, I did wind up a bit bored with the book as I got further into it, even though it isn’t very long. My overall impression of it is positive, but mildly so—not one I’m likely to go out of my way to recommend.

[Mairéad · Rating 1 out of 5]

Memoirs are such personal things that it seems almost wrong to rate them but here we are! I'm sure lots of readers will enjoy this story of growing up in a large family in Derry but I really struggled to connect with the authors voice/writing style in this and found myself battling to keep reading to the end.

[fatma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? is--maybe surprisingly, given its title--a lovely book, funny and poignant in equal measure. And it's exactly that combination of the two, the balancing act between gravity and levity, that makes it work so well as a memoir. Right from the get-go, the opening chapter of the book tells you all that you need to know about the kind of tone you're getting here,

"One thing they don't tell you about mammies is that when they die you get new trousers. On my first full day as a half-orphan, I remember fiddling with unfamiliar cords as Margaret held my cheek and told me Mammy was a flower . . . 'Sometimes,' croaked Margaret, 'when God sees a particularly pretty flower, He'll take it up from Earth, and put it in his own garden' . . . As Margaret reassured me that God was an avaricious gardener intent on murdering my loved ones any time he pleased, I concentrated once more on my new corduroy slacks, summoned from the aether as if issued by whichever government department administers to the needs of all the brave little boys with dead, flowery mams - an infant grief action pack stuffed with trousers, sensible underpants, cod liver oil tablets and a solar-powered calculator."

And to be sure, it's not an easy tone to strike. This is, in many ways, a sad book: O'Reilly confronts the loss of his mother head on, a loss that is made all the more tragic because he was so young when it happened. It's also a loss that follows him throughout his life, as he tries to recover his early memories of his mother, the very little that he had of her before she passed away.

And yet, Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? is never a sad book, per se. O'Reilly takes many things seriously--bereavement, grief--but he also knows when not to take things seriously, and that's what makes this book so charming in the end. That's not to say that sad books about grief are somehow lesser--that O'Reilly's book is "better" as a memoir because it's not just sad--but rather that this particular book accomplishes what it sets out to do, which is to combine the serious with the funny, and look at the ways in which the two can and do intersect.

"I was simply too young to grasp that the only thing sadder than a five-year-old crying because his mammy died is a five-year-old wandering around with a smile on his face because he hasn't yet understood what that means. We laugh about it now, but it really is hard for me to imagine the effect I must have had, skipping sunnily through the throng, appalling each person upon their entry to the room by thrusting my beaming, three-foot frame in front of them like a chipper little maître d', with the cheerful inquiry:
'Did ye hear Mammy died?'"

Something else I loved about this book's tone is O'Reilly's earnestness. It's a memoir about his mother, yes, but also about the rest of his family: his dad, who features prominently in many of the chapters, and his ten siblings. There are lots of fun and funny dynamics at play here, and I think O'Reilly does a great job at teasing out some of the notable and illustrative anecdotes that speak to these family members. His dad especially is quite the character (in the best of ways): I love the way he gently pokes fun at his little quirks and mannerisms. Regardless of who or what O'Reilly is talking about, though, that earnestness is always there: you can really tell how much he loves and cares for his family, and that shines through in the writing without it ever being sentimental or saccharine. It's just a simple fact for him, and he treats it as such.

I just really enjoyed Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?--and especially because I listened to Séamas O'Reilly himself narrate the audiobook. His literal voice and narrative voice compliment each other perfectly, and the humour of his writing very much comes through in the way that he narrates the audiobook.

Altogether, Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? really is such a charming memoir, one that I frankly can't imagine anyone not liking.

Thanks so much to Hachette Audio for providing me with an audiobook ARC of this in exchange for an honest review!

[Swaye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Séamas O'Reilly has a true gift. The humour threaded throughout this heartwarming memoir had me laughing out loud many times. What a gift to the world is his kind, lovely dad! As MM Suarez said, this book is a "beautiful love letter to his family, especially to his dad and mammy".

Thank you for turning me onto this gem, MM Suarez. You have such amazing taste in books!

[Suzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

My friend was right - this is a touching and hilarious memoir of O'Reilly's growing up the 9th of 11 children after his Mammy died of cancer when he was 5. While he can list all his siblings "in one breath", we hear less about them than we do his father who is clearly the hero of these stories. Since they live in Derry on the border with Northern Ireland during the end of The Troubles, that violence threads through the story, but takes a back seat to the goings on in the family. This is a story of a very large family who thrived in spite of losing their mother, and a beautiful tribute to the man that kept them together and kept them going. As you can imagine there are a lot of stories to mine in a family with this many members. I laughed and I cried, and I'm so glad I listened to him tell his own story.

Why I'm reading this: Highly recommend in audio by an IRL friend whose judgment I trust!

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt really guilty. I was laughing out loud. Reading a book about the death of a mother and the funeral and how a family of eleven children and a dad coped with life. This stuff should not be FUNNY! But, Seamas O’Reilly’s memoir had me in stitches.

I am not Irish, or Catholic, or from a large family. It doesn’t matter. O’Reilly draws his community and family and their experiences so vividly, I felt like I was. Yes, he pokes at human foibles but the love for his family and community shines through. It’s a gloriously uplifting book.

O’Reilly offers memorable characters through story and quotable descriptions. “I was Seamas of the Dead Mam,” he writes about how he was treated on Mother’s Day after the death of his mother. The family dog Nollaig “was less than a beloved pet than an uncaring brute who tumbled through our lives like a demented fat boy in an American campus comedy.” He writes about the priest’s blessing of the family caravan and the family tour of Europe.

Just thinking about this memoir makes me smile.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for the BookTube Prize. Review in June

[ancientreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Séamas O'Reilly reads too fast, which is a problem for those of us not routinely exposed to Irish accents, but (a) my listening comprehension improved after a while, and anyway (b) I replayed any number of passages because they were so insightful / heartbreaking / hilarious / all of the above.

I have to admit that (sorry, Mr. O'Reilly) I look askance at people who have large numbers of children, but Mammy and Daddy must've done something right, because Séamas became internet-famous for a Twitter thread about serving drinks to the president of Ireland while out of his mind on Special K. This, the acknowledgments inform me, is how he met his literary agent.

The ad copy isn't doing DYHMD? any favors, though, because this book is not "heartwarming" or in any other way odious; you're pretty well guaranteed not to spend any time saying "Awwww" while pressing your hand to your bosom. A family whose members genuinely love one another gets hit in the solar plexus with a two-by-four but keeps on going; there are plenty of Feelings, but these show up in the most matter-of-fact way. The anecdote that gives DYHMD? its title, for example, which invites us to consider the reactions of adults who showed up at Ms. O's wake to be greeted by cheerfully bouncy wee Séamas with a big announcement to make. I mean. He was five.

Adult Séamas has some perspective to offer on the inarticulate nature of a child's grief and anger, preserved intact for decades because, for good reason, there was no real opportunity to address it. So he breaks down weeping at the sight of Louise Bourgeois's giant spider Maman on a visit to the Guggenheim Bilbao. No, it's not the spider's supposed maternal feeling that hits so hard; but I'll leave it to O'Reilly to explain.

DYHMD? isn't organized chronologically; rather, each chapter takes up a theme. Linear narrative would have been a falsification -- more than any recounting of memory is falsification, I mean -- given how much of this is a childhood story. Inevitably, I guess, this entails some repetitive moments. But not many, and they hardly matter. Neither biography nor memoir generally appeals to me; this one's something special.

[Sarah Koppelkam · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise of this memoir (mother of the authors Irish-Catholic family of 13 dies of cancer, leaving her 11 children with her dear husband, all told with humor in a post-Troubles Northern Ireland) sounded right up my street. So, when I found myself unable to get through this, I tried SO hard - I got the audiobook instead, I kept trying to pick it up for the balance of a month. Ultimately, I had to DNF this one. I found it exceptionally boring. Others seem to love it; didn't work for me.

[Dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A genuinely delightful, funny, poignant book from front to back. Fabulous writing. I laughed and teared up every chapter in equal measure. 5 wee stars 🌟

[Rebecca Best · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed it. Oddly was most moved by the acknowledgements. Jeremy bit was my fave

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I probably shouldn't read books that other people praise as being irresistibly hilarious--especially when said hilarity is combined with words like charming and heartwarming. I mean, I think I'm pretty funny (and my husband finds me delightful, most of the time), but I rarely find things other people think are funny as funny as they apparently do (in case this makes me sound like a humourless killjoy, we went to a play the other night and I laughed loudly and uncontrollably throughout the second act--so I do think many things are funny, just not all the things other people think are funny). I have sat in a number of movie theatres, straight-faced while other people howl, letting out the occasional chuckle while they clutch their sides and wipe tears from their eyes. This book made me laugh several times--which is actually more than other supposedly funny books do--but it didn't make me laugh nearly as much as it was clearly intended to. So here is an example of something others probably find funny but that strikes me as straining for comedic effect (he's describing a family trip in Spain where their van's door suddenly fell off): "God knows what the people who ran the campsite made of us as we turned the corner and entered their premises in a minibus held together with holy water, grease and the outstretched palms of two adolescent boys. We might as well have entered in a giant parping clown car with a big rubber horn, a backfiring exhaust pipe and Granny O'Reilly strapped to the roof in her rocking chair, firing off six-shooters to announce our arrival." If that makes you laugh out loud, yay--you should read this book. You'll love it.

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

As one of eleven siblings, Séamas understandably feels like he's not getting enough attention. But his mother dies when he's only five years old, leaving him as one of many grief-stricken children, being brought up by a devoted but understandably distracted father. Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?, is, in many ways, a celebration of this father, a man who is endlessly kind and affectionate, despite the many demands on his time and love. Séamas O'Reilly initially became internet famous when he tweeted a story about accidentally taking ketamine before he had to work as a waiter for the then-president of Ireland, Mary McAleese. The humour and timing that made this anecdote so popular is definitely present in this book: I read this in bed, and laughed so much I woke up my wife. The jokes are tempered by both thoughts on grief and explorations of Derry during and immediately after The Troubles. While I might say that this book doesn't always hang together as a narrative, or that I wished O'Reilly probed some areas of the story more deeply, this is a hugely enjoyable read, with real affection and wit.

[Lesley Halliday · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dear god, somebody needs to stop telling People Who Are Funny on Twitter that they should write a memoir. More a series of newspaper articles than a memoir. The odd funny phrase but shamelessly self-indulgent & clichéd

[Dan Banana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was quite bored, a painful listen about a painful life. Some of the dribble just dribbles on and on and on. Religious issues, nothing new, family drama, nothing new...some parts alright but, not my cup of tea.

[Carm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super sweet. Super funny.

[Bonnie G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simple sweet family storytelling. Truly funny though it is about growing up one of 11 Catholic children in Northern Ireland whose mother dies of cancer quite young. Luckily they have a wonderful father and are smart and healthy and funny. A 3.5 rounded up because it managed to be heartwarming without being nauseating. This is a very hard thing to do.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking, hilarious, so completely full of love

[MM Suarez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Without doubt my favorite memoir in a long while, sweet, poignant and also hysterically funny, in my opinion it is the author's beautiful love letter to his family, especially to his dad and mammy.

[Kitty · Rating 5 out of 5]

ma tean Seamas O'Reillyt ta Guardiani kolumnidest, kus ta kirjutab... isablogi. sellest, kuidas ta lapse sai ja kuidas see kõik siis nüüd on. see teema ei ole mulle ülemäära hingelähedane, aga lugenud olen ikka, sest kirjutajana on ta mõnus. ja sealt on saanud väikseid vihjeid ta enda ellu ja lapsepõlve - kasvamine üksikisaga üheteistlapselises põhja-iiri katoliiklikus peres.

nii et kui ta nüüd kirjutas raamatu sellest, kuidas see kõik täpsemalt nii läks ja mis edasi sai, siis ma muidugi haarasin lugemiseks.

oli täpselt nii palju musta huumorit, kui võis oodata sellest, et kokku on saanu vaimukas kirjutaja, (põhja)iiri kultuur (halloo, need inimesed on suht harjunud surmaga kõrvuti elama) ja asjaolu, et Seamas oli viieaastane, kui ta ema vähki suri (sellest siis pealkiri "Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?", mis perekonnalegendi põhjal olevat olnud fraas, millega väike Seamas elevusest kekseldes kõiki peiedele saabujaid tervitas). siin tegeldakse leinaga pigem rohkem kui vähem ja ma sain ühe koha peal ikka täitsa pisara silma, aga samas saab nalja ka hirmsasti.

enamus kümnest õest-vennast jäävad pigem omavahel raskesti eristatavateks taustategelasteks, aga loo tõeline staar on muidugi isa, kes kogu selle karja ikkagi üles kasvatas ja selle kõrvale, tundub, ka äärmiselt tore inimene on. ekstsentriline, aga tore.

kogu see katoliikluse teema jäi mu jaoks siin päris kõvasti kõlama, sest Seamase vanemad olid tõesti täiesti siiralt usklikud inimesed, aga samas mitte mingid fundamentalistid, vaid sedasorti, kelle meelest Jumal ootas neilt headust ja kõigi armastamist. selline... Annika Laatsi tüüpi kristlus. selle pere lapsi suudeti isegi Troublesi-aegses Derrys (NB, O'Reillyde maja oli konkreetselt Põhja-Iirimaa ja Iiri vabariigi piiri ääres!) kasvatada nii, et neil oli protestantidest sõpru, ja see ei ole mingi pisiasi.

[Furrawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lilting, colorful, moving, and filled with hilarity.

I laughed aloud so many times reading this book. O’Reilly is forthright and oh so funny. The serious bits of the book are heartbreaking. The funny bits are hilarious. It must be nice to have all those brothers and sisters. A book about history, Northern Ireland, grief, childhood, joy, movies, Catholicism, family, and so many other things… including likable and unlikable dogs. Read this book. You won’t be bored for even a millisecond.

[Conor Brennan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The bit where the Dad drives so carefully around the bumper cars made me laugh out loud because my Dad (a guard) did the same thing, even occasionally giving hand signals. A great read which just proves that everyone in Ireland is from effectively the same family.