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We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It

A Memoir of My Irish Boyhood

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We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It

By: Tom Phelan
Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
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About this listen

 “You don’t have to be Irish to cherish this literary gift—just being human and curious and from a family will suffice.” —Malachy McCourt, New York Times bestselling author of A Monk Swimming

In the tradition of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes and Alice Taylor’s To School Through the Fields, Tom Phelan’s We Were Rich and We Didn’t Know It is a heartfelt and masterfully written memoir of growing up in Ireland in the 1940s.

Tom Phelan, who was born and raised in County Laois in the Irish midlands, spent his formative years working with his wise and demanding father as he sought to wrest a livelihood from a farm that was often wet, muddy, and back-breaking.

It was a time before rural electrification, the telephone, and indoor plumbing; a time when the main modes of travel were bicycle and animal cart; a time when small farmers struggled to survive and turkey eggs were hatched in the kitchen cupboard; a time when the Church exerted enormous control over Ireland.

We Were Rich and We Didn’t Know It recounts Tom’s upbringing in an isolated, rural community from the day he was delivered by the local midwife. With tears and laughter, it speaks to the strength of the human spirit in the face of life’s adversities. Art & Literature Authors Cultural & Regional Memoir Village Heartfelt

Critic reviews

“We Were Rich and We Didn’t Know It will enrich your soul. Tom Phelan is an enormously gifted purveyor of the word and here he recounts the travails and triumphs of an Irish farm family, elevating same in glorious poetic prose. You don’t have to be Irish to cherish this literary gift—just being human and curious and from a family will suffice.” (Malachy McCourt)
“Other works have been situated at the same intersection of time and place, but rarely has the tale been told with such a charming simplicity of voice plus a vividness that fully captures the distinctive sound and pulse of Irish life.” (Billy Collins)
“A tender recollection of growing up on a farm in Ireland in the 1940s. In precise, vibrant prose, novelist Phelan (Lies the Mushroom Pickers Told, 2015, etc.) creates... a captivating portrait of a bygone time.”
"Narrator Gerard Doyle's Irish brogue takes listeners back in time to Tom Phelan's childhood."
All stars
Most relevant
This has to be one of the best audio I have listened. it brings you back to life in Ireland when money was short but people stilled looked out for one another

Excellent

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I have greatly enjoyed the two previous books by Tom Phelan I have listened to. This, of course, didn't have the plot of the others, but it shared his amazing skill of creating the pictures and emotions from the fine detail and beautiful use of words.

Insight into life in rural Ireland beautifully written

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Having listened to this I bought it for my 90 year old Dad who was brought up on a farm in Ireland. When he started reading it I had an emotional phone call from him to say how much he was enjoying it and how it was bringing back lots of memories of his time spent with his Dad when he was young.

Reminiscent of a bygone era

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Tom Phelans book is so full of love and shared, if reluctant, joy of a different and difficult time in Ireland. For me every page stirred my good memories of rural Ireland in the 50s and 60s. It also revealed the horrible secrets we were not aware of then.

I didn't want this book to end.

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I found it very difficult to listen to the narrator , for me it killed the great book .

Hard to listen

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