Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?

Bookseller recommendation

“A candid look at the author's own upbringing as one of eleven children in an Irish Catholic family headed by a loving and eccentric father. Too young to process his mother's death, Séamas grows into an understanding of the situation and writes hilariously and lovingly of his siblings and father as they figure out how to muddle on, to great success. A fantastic audiobook as well!”

— Jamie • Flyleaf Books

Bookseller recommendation

“I read a lot of memoirs, but this one was different. Séamas O'Reilly was 5 when his mother died leaving him, his 10 siblings, and his father to manage life on their own. In any other author's hands, this might have been a tragic tale. In O'Reilly's it is joyous, raucous, and gut-bustingly funny. In 1990s Derry, the Troubles are in the background, but not very real to a young boy who was more interested in attention, dinosaurs, and Star Wars than he was in politics. The author's father shines as the imperfect, grief-stricken, unstoppable hero in this book. This is a love story for crazy families everywhere. Share it with yours.”

— Kelly • Fountain Bookstore

Bookseller recommendation

“If you noticed me laughing out loud on my walk home in the last week or so, I was probably listening to this new memoir, which, despite being about the death of O'Reilly's mother when he was five, against the backdrop of the violent Troubles in their Northern Irish city of Derry, also manages to be about dinosaurs, his goofy and loving father, the largest and best-documented home-taped VHS archive in the known universe, and growing up the ninth of eleven children in an Ireland where families didn't get that large any more. Only after finishing did I realize that O'Reilly first found fame with his viral Twitter thread about meeting the President of Ireland while on ketamine, which, in its nerdy embrace of life's absurd embarrassments, turned out to be an excellent preview of how warm, charming, and, yes, laugh-out-loud funny his first book would become.”

— Tom • Phinney Books

Bookseller recommendation

“This is a beautiful memoir about growing up as one of eleven children in a Catholic family in Northern Ireland. The author's mother died when he was just five. This book chronicles the large brood of children, led by their widowed father, as they navigate life without a mother. At turns hilarious and heartbreaking, this is a delightful book. ”

— Mary • Skylark Bookshop