Well-Remembered Days. Eoin O'Ceallaigh's Memoir Of A Twentieth-Century Catholic Life

Well-remembered Days is the hilarious rendition of the putative life of one Eoin O'Ceallaigh, a 20th-century Irish Catholic, written by Arthur Matthews, better known for his role as co-writer of the Channel Four series Father Ted. With one foot in surrealism and the other knee-deep in the muck of an Irish bog, this series of comic sketches echoes with the voices of Ted and Dougal and touches on all the same themes of sexual repression, racist abuse, sexist caricatures and alcoholic mishaps. Told by the 90-something Eoin, once-raging founder of the League of the Mother of God Against Sin and most active employee of the National Censorship Board, most of the tales are carried off with an impish satire that veers between fondness for the Irish and viciousness at the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. Some might think the stories far-fetched but only recently priests in the South were advising farmers to sprinkle holy water on cattle and themselves in a bid to stop the spread of Foot and Mouth. Eoin begins his reminiscences with a very funny attack on the extremities of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes.

The poverty that McCourt harps on about was confined to a handful of malcontents (probably no more than 10 or 12), who, if pressed, would probably admit that their lot was not so bad after all.... My own memory of Ireland... is that everyone was blissfully happy all of the time.

View other editions of Well-Remembered Days. Eoin O'Ceallaigh's Memoir Of A Twentieth-Century Catholic Life.
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One Trick Pony - Rated
A tedious book based on a single joke (have a character say things out of character and make these pronouncements obscene). I laughed once, so it deserves one star. That's it.

One of the funniest books.... - Rated
This book was recommended to me by another Father Ted fan - there's very few books that have made me laugh out loud - this is one of them! The sense of humour is along the same lines as the Father Ted series itself - its a must for anyone who liked the series.. buy it now!!

Possibly the funniest book I've read this year.... - Rated
Those of you who are familar with Father Ted will find similarly-styled surreal elements of that superb comedy series in this first novel by one its co-writers.

It's ostensibly the 'autobiography' of an Irish Catholic activist & poet, Eoin O'Ceallaigh, born in the early years of the 20th century, but seeming to possess a mindset stuck somewhere in the 18th. He had a sexless marriage (his wife died a virgin) and finds the modern world distasteful and revolting, bemoaning the changes in the Ireland of his childhood.
And he's an unashamed bigot: Protestants, feminists, blacks, gays, women's rights, the British, rock music, you name 'em, he HATES 'em. He also hates modern writers, playwrights and poets (including W.B. Yeats)and so (naturally enough) he gets a position working in the censorship department of the Irish government

It all happens to him: the fight for Irish Independence, the Civil War that followed, the Pope's visit to Ireland. Even an alien abduction...

Now, if this doesn't sound funny, I can assure you it is absolutely hilarious. It works primarily because ultimatly, Eoin is a parody of certain personalty types (I was brought up in a fundamentalist PROTESTANT household and met many people like him) rather than the Catholicism itself.

I do however, get the feeling that Arthur Mathews, as a modern Irish writer may be venting certain personal issues & angers here. If so, he lacks the bitterness that would have made this novel a lot less funny, and settles instead for a faint echo of sadness that helps rather than hinders the humour.

So, If you must read only one top-notch, well-written, very funny book this year, make it this one.

Ah, go on...

Brilliantly funny, but spoilt by chapter nine. - Rated
A wonderfully funny, irreverent, tongue in cheek, fun pokin' account of 20th. century Irish life; until near the end of chapter nine, when the author dives from his ledge of sublety into a swamp of gratuitous and unnecessary crudity.Without pages 196 to 198, this would have been a book to pass around and re read again and again....what a pity..

Great stuff from a Father Ted genius - Rated
Hugely enjoyable spoof autobiography from one of the creators of TV's superb Father Ted.
The surrealism and pathos of Eoin O'Ceallaigh's "recollections" mask a cutting satire on 20th Century Irish history and conservative mores.
It made me laugh so much on a crowded Tube train that two complete strangers came up to me and asked where they could buy this book!