Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It: A Memoir of My Irish Boyhood
    We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It: A Memoir of My Irish Boyhood
    We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It: A Memoir of My Irish Boyhood
    Audiobook6 hours

    We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It: A Memoir of My Irish Boyhood

    Written by Tom Phelan

    Narrated by Gerard Doyle

    4.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    “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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateMar 5, 2019
    ISBN9781508285304
    Author

    Tom Phelan

    Tom Phelan had just turned fifty when his first novel, In the Season of the Daisies, was accepted for publication. Since then, Phelan has written five other novels: Iscariot, Derrycloney, The Canal Bridge, Nailer, and Lies the Mushroom Pickers Told. Born and reared in Ireland, he now lives in New York.

    Related to We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It

    Related audiobooks

    Personal Memoirs For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Boy Who Drew Auschwitz

      Jan 27, 2021

      The Boy Who Drew Auschwitz
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Life For a Life

      Jul 7, 2022

      A Life For a Life
      3 min read

    • Article

      Writing Political Poetry In Difficult Times: There’s A Reason Fascist Regimes Come For The Artists | Maxine Beneba Clarke

      Nov 8, 2021

      Some authors write for escape. I wrote poetry during the pandemic to process, to meditate on the world that was, to try and make some sense of things as a writer, and hopefully to offer some peace to at least one reader, somewhere, somehow. When Covi

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Dullard

      Jun 5, 2019

      The villagers of Yockenthwaite knew him as ‘Jack Dull’, ‘Jack Dolt,’ or sometimes just ‘The Dullard’. His real name was John Dullard, last in a long, illustrious line of Dullards, and a man – so they said – of quite miraculous stupidity. The kind of

      7 min read

    • Article

      Summer Reading Guide

      Jan 2, 2022

      Summer Reading Guide
      6 min read

    • Article

      Across The Whited Fields

      Oct 13, 2019

      In a twilight streeta small girl laughing. The red and yellow flowersprofuse, inhale the air. We want to hold your name,Polly, dancing in the rain Polly, skipping down the street.Sometimes the world bequeaths then takes away the one to whomou

      14 min read

    • Article

      Lie Of The LAND

      Aug 2, 2023

      Lie Of The LAND
      8 min read

    • Article

      Death’s Plus-One

      Sep 8, 2017

      Death’s Plus-One
      4 min read

    • Article

      Old And New FLAMES

      Dec 1, 2020

      Old And New FLAMES
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Scarlet PEBBLE

      Feb 7, 2024

      The Scarlet PEBBLE
      9 min read

    • Article

      Mirror Mirror On The Wall

      Oct 5, 2023

      Mirror Mirror On The Wall
      10 min read

    • Article

      The PROMISE

      Aug 18, 2021

      The PROMISE
      9 min read

    • Article

      Saving Graces

      Mar 9, 2022

      Wemmick’s Aged Parent in Dickens’s Great Expectations, beaming by the fire and enjoying his son’s jovial banter despite being stone deaf, remains the template for a contented and cared-for old age. But we read few such scenarios today. We read only o

      5 min read

    • Article

      Another Chance At Love

      Nov 11, 2021

      Another Chance At Love
      4 min read

    • Article

      Screams In the Night

      Jul 21, 2022

      Screams In the Night
      6 min read

    • Article

      Exotic Bird In The Paddock

      Oct 16, 2023

      Miles the sheep farmer was coming to Lush Places to fix our leaking water troughs. He sent a text message to say he was here. I hopped over the stile, in my stylish, mud-smeared, sheepbitten paddock shorts and saw him at the far end of our pear orcha

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Third Obituary of Anton Popov

      Mar 4, 2019

      Three days after Anton Antonovich Popov garroted himself with piano wire, Elsie Green motored up his looping driveway—voice recorder and notepad in her shoulder bag—to write Popov’s first, and her 200th, obituary. Popov, composer of an acclaimed debu

      17 min read

    • Article

      The Last Waylon Party

      Jan 18, 2019

      The Last Waylon Party
      14 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Apr 18, 2024

      Great Read
      7 min read

    • Article

      Winter Sun

      Feb 6, 2020

      Winter Sun
      4 min read

    • Article

      Out Of The Blue

      Aug 24, 2021

      Out Of The Blue
      11 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It

    4.5/5

    30 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      A lovely straightforward book that tells about a boys life growing up in the 1940s in rural Ireland.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Beautiful story well told. Narrator was excellent, Highly recommended to all

      1 person found this helpful