Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?
Séamas O’Reilly interviewed by Róisín Ní Chéileachair
Venue: Dingle Bookshop
Date: Sunday 20 November 2022
Time: 16.30 – 17.30 IST/GMT
Tickets: €8 in advance, €10 on the door
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?
Séamas O’Reilly faoi agallamh ag Róisín Ní Chéileachair
Ionad: Dingle Bookshop
Dáta: Dé Domhnaigh 20 Samhain 2022
Am: 16.30 – 17.30 IST/GMT
Costas: Beidh na ticéid ar díol ar €8 roimh ré agus €10 ag an doras
as
Séamas O’Reilly is a columnist for the Observer and writes about media and politics for the Irish Times, New Statesman, Guts and VICE.
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? Is part memoir, part observation of the changing state of Irish society over the past 30 years, all set against a background of The Troubles as Seamas O’Reilly describes growing up without his mother in a large and entertaining family based in an Irish border county.
From the nuns cooking the family’s Christmas turkey each year to his father’s commitment to frugality which showed itself in the recording and cataloging of over 800 films to avoid taking out a video rental subscription, life as one of eleven in 1990s Ireland was an experience. An experience peopled with numerous bewildering friends, relations and neighbours who blew in and out to ‘help’.
O’Reilly describes how his mother’s death when he was 5-years-old changed his childhood relationships with everyone and everything, as knowledge of his tragic experience preceded him.
Copies of Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? will be on sale by the Dingle Bookshop at the event. The author has agreed to sign copies at the end of the talk.
Róisín Ní Chéileachair
Róisín Ní Chéileachair is a native Irish speaker from Dún Chaoin. She has a degree in Irish and Spanish with Theatre and after spending a few years working in Galway, is now back in Corca Dhuibhne and currently working as a broadcaster with RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta. She always had an interest in her local heritage as her ancestors come from the Blasket Islands on her mother’s side and her father’s family were writers from Cúil Aodha in Co. Cork. Coming from such a rich background, she herself sings traditional sean nós regularly, singing songs from both backgrounds.
