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Well remembered days: Eoin O'Ceallaigh's memoir of a twentieth-century Catholic life
This is the fictious autobiography of Eoin O'Cellaigh, writer, poet, nationalist, playwright, civil servant, commentator (non-sport) and, above all, a defender of the traditional values of Ireland. He recounts the key moments in his rich life.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 6, 2026
I remember reading and enjoying this book back when 'Father Ted' was first on our TV screens. If you haven't seen 'Father Ted' and if books, and films, like 'Angela's Ashes or 'Song for a Raggy Boy' mean nothing then the humour of this book is sure to elude you. I rather think it might elude me if I read it today. So instead of writing my own review based on memory I reproduce a review from the Irish Independent newspaper from the year it was published (2001):
"A slog through weird old Ireland
"Sun 25 Mar 2001 at 00:11
"Well-Remembered Days: Eoin O'Ceallaigh's Memoir of a Twentieth-Century Catholic Life As told to Arthur Mathews (Macmillan: £12.99)...the trouble with parody there's always the risk that people might think it's the real thing, and drop "Eoin O'Ceallaigh's Memoir of a Twentieth-Century Catholic Life" like a hot proverb as soon as they read the subtitle. And of course Macmillan aren't in this just for the joke, so the cover of Well-Remembered Days spoils the fun by announcing, in the same size type as the title, "as told to Arthur Mathews," and, in smaller print (but still significantly larger than the "Twentieth-Century Memoir" line), "from the co-writer of Father Ted".
"Arthur Mathews, a strange and interesting man with a profoundly peculiar sense of humour, has built a career on examining the weirdness of the characters that populate Ireland, and particularly those who inhabit the hidden corners of the Catholic Church. Father Ted Crilly, for example, appeared on stage long before he ever became a TV series, when Arthur had his sights fixed on being a stand-up comedian. The stand-up version of Ted never quite took off, and perhaps this book demonstrates why.
"The first chapter of Eoin O'Ceallaigh's memoir is called "Before Sellotape" (the chapter titles are tiny comical haikus "Through Baltinglass, Darkly" also deserves a mention), and it opens with a scene in which Eoin and "a clerical friend," Father Bunny Long, are watching a video. It's a porn movie called 1,001 Blow Jobs, but, as Eoin insists, the two men are subjecting themselves to this unpleasantness purely for research purposes. Afterwards, Bunny says, "Eoin, there was a lot of sex in that film, but do you know what? I didn't see much love."
""He was so right," Eoin observes. "There was scarcely any real affection evident in any of the blow jobs."
"This is the joke on which Arthur's book is based elderly and deeply conservative man demonstrates his unfamiliarity with popular culture, sex and the finer human feelings to a degree that younger, hipper types will find hilarious but after 211 pages it wears very thin indeed. Interesting snapshots of the past are all very well, but this is an entire home movie, shot on a wobbly hand-held camera.
"The oddness and, arguably, the brilliance of the mind that gave us Dougal and Ted needs a bit of help to keep it under control. The structural limitations of writing a TV script, and the procedural constraints of working with a partner (Graham Linehan), kept Arthur on some kind of leash. Here, where he has a free run, the problems are difficult to ignore.
"Father Ted appeared in short sharp bursts (each episode about the length of a mass), and we could switch it off afterwards and make a cup of tea, secure in the knowledge that we had escaped more or less intact from the peculiarities of Craggy Island. But Well-Remembered Days is about 208 pages too long.
"The few well-observed details don't make it worth the slog. Eoin's father was called John, and his children are Sorcha and Lorcan; Sorcha has produced two grandchildren, Aislaunacheen and Duirbheuiannuineonn. This progression through increasingly unpronounceable Irish names is classic but it's a one-liner.
"Meanwhile, the cast of alcoholic priests, reminiscent as they are of Father Jack, are a bit of a giggle at first encounter, but after a while they're as tiresome as any alcoholic. And all those jolly jokes about paedophilia are perhaps not quite as humorous as young Arthur might imagine.
"In essence, this is a feature-length Father Ted that substitutes an acidic bitterness for the gently peculiar humour of the original, and replaces the amiable Ted with a genuinely nasty interloper."
I have given it three because it isn't bad - but it has passed its sell by date - and that was one with a very short shelf life.
"A slog through weird old Ireland
"Sun 25 Mar 2001 at 00:11
"Well-Remembered Days: Eoin O'Ceallaigh's Memoir of a Twentieth-Century Catholic Life As told to Arthur Mathews (Macmillan: £12.99)...the trouble with parody there's always the risk that people might think it's the real thing, and drop "Eoin O'Ceallaigh's Memoir of a Twentieth-Century Catholic Life" like a hot proverb as soon as they read the subtitle. And of course Macmillan aren't in this just for the joke, so the cover of Well-Remembered Days spoils the fun by announcing, in the same size type as the title, "as told to Arthur Mathews," and, in smaller print (but still significantly larger than the "Twentieth-Century Memoir" line), "from the co-writer of Father Ted".
"Arthur Mathews, a strange and interesting man with a profoundly peculiar sense of humour, has built a career on examining the weirdness of the characters that populate Ireland, and particularly those who inhabit the hidden corners of the Catholic Church. Father Ted Crilly, for example, appeared on stage long before he ever became a TV series, when Arthur had his sights fixed on being a stand-up comedian. The stand-up version of Ted never quite took off, and perhaps this book demonstrates why.
"The first chapter of Eoin O'Ceallaigh's memoir is called "Before Sellotape" (the chapter titles are tiny comical haikus "Through Baltinglass, Darkly" also deserves a mention), and it opens with a scene in which Eoin and "a clerical friend," Father Bunny Long, are watching a video. It's a porn movie called 1,001 Blow Jobs, but, as Eoin insists, the two men are subjecting themselves to this unpleasantness purely for research purposes. Afterwards, Bunny says, "Eoin, there was a lot of sex in that film, but do you know what? I didn't see much love."
""He was so right," Eoin observes. "There was scarcely any real affection evident in any of the blow jobs."
"This is the joke on which Arthur's book is based elderly and deeply conservative man demonstrates his unfamiliarity with popular culture, sex and the finer human feelings to a degree that younger, hipper types will find hilarious but after 211 pages it wears very thin indeed. Interesting snapshots of the past are all very well, but this is an entire home movie, shot on a wobbly hand-held camera.
"The oddness and, arguably, the brilliance of the mind that gave us Dougal and Ted needs a bit of help to keep it under control. The structural limitations of writing a TV script, and the procedural constraints of working with a partner (Graham Linehan), kept Arthur on some kind of leash. Here, where he has a free run, the problems are difficult to ignore.
"Father Ted appeared in short sharp bursts (each episode about the length of a mass), and we could switch it off afterwards and make a cup of tea, secure in the knowledge that we had escaped more or less intact from the peculiarities of Craggy Island. But Well-Remembered Days is about 208 pages too long.
"The few well-observed details don't make it worth the slog. Eoin's father was called John, and his children are Sorcha and Lorcan; Sorcha has produced two grandchildren, Aislaunacheen and Duirbheuiannuineonn. This progression through increasingly unpronounceable Irish names is classic but it's a one-liner.
"Meanwhile, the cast of alcoholic priests, reminiscent as they are of Father Jack, are a bit of a giggle at first encounter, but after a while they're as tiresome as any alcoholic. And all those jolly jokes about paedophilia are perhaps not quite as humorous as young Arthur might imagine.
"In essence, this is a feature-length Father Ted that substitutes an acidic bitterness for the gently peculiar humour of the original, and replaces the amiable Ted with a genuinely nasty interloper."
I have given it three because it isn't bad - but it has passed its sell by date - and that was one with a very short shelf life.
March 4, 2025
3.5★
absolutely hilarious and unserious while sharing memories about growing up in a catholic ireland in the 20th century.
nevertheless, you can tell this is told by an old white man despising modern woman's rights and liberals to a point where it's not just satire :D
absolutely hilarious and unserious while sharing memories about growing up in a catholic ireland in the 20th century.
nevertheless, you can tell this is told by an old white man despising modern woman's rights and liberals to a point where it's not just satire :D
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July 22, 2020A spoof misery memoir from the Father Ted creator we still talk about*, or rather, a memoir which doesn't know what all the misery memoirs are complaining about. Eoin O'Ceallaigh spent the 20th century proudly campaiging against all threats to Ireland: mucky books, Protestantism, women forgetting their place in the home, jazz... And now all that good work is being talked about as though it was somehow repressive! Fine Irish institutions such as the Republican Paedophile Priest are being thrown away! Angela's Ashes was a bestseller! It won't do, and O'Ceallaigh wants to set the record straight: "The poverty that McCourt harps on about was confined to a handful of malcontents (probably no more that ten or twelve)". Now, I've not read Angela's Ashes, let alone any of the ripostes to it which inspired this, but if you've ever heard some ghastly old specimen play the 'and it never did me any harm' card, while the harm it did them is obvious to everyone but themselves, you'll get the core joke. "A Brother once stood on my head for an hour while I recited the decades of the rosary in Latin. I admit it was unpleasant at the time, but if he hadn't done it, how would I have turned out? Like Boyzone or the Corrs?" That's not the only approach – there's plenty of oblivious narrator stuff, and a lot of outright silliness – but between them all the gag rate is such that when one doesn't work, and plenty don't, there's always another along soon. No classic, but certainly a worthier footnote to Father Ted than the other business, and next time I watch an episode of Normal People, there'll be an additional layer of gratitude for how much O'Ceallaigh and his sadly less fictional ilk would hate the new Ireland it shows.
*NB I have no knowledge of the position Arthur Mathews may or may not take on any issues of the day. But that's fine by me. He's not become a monomaniacal, unavoidable evangelist for being wrong, is the point; if he's quietly wrong in his own time, that's another matter.
*NB I have no knowledge of the position Arthur Mathews may or may not take on any issues of the day. But that's fine by me. He's not become a monomaniacal, unavoidable evangelist for being wrong, is the point; if he's quietly wrong in his own time, that's another matter.
February 16, 2015
If you want and laugh read this, and then get mad because it's true and that's not so funny.
April 19, 2016
One of my favourite books . Ever. It makes my lungs ache with laughs xx
July 24, 2022
I found this book in the charity section in Tesco. I recognised the author as one half of the Father Ted writing team, but I had no idea if Arthur was trying to do something more grown-up and write the biography of some guy I’d never heard of (but might well be famous in some circles), or if this was a comedy book. It doesn’t take long to figure out it’s the latter.
The fictional subject of this biography is Eion O’Cellaigh, a civil servant who does his best to stop the Ireland he grew up in from disappearing. He does this by using his limited government powers to ban any book, music, play or poem that he believes might corrupt the good God-fearing people of Ireland. His job is only part of the fun though, there’s also his tips on how to have a long lasting marriage without ever having to indulge that ‘sex’ business, and how through his efforts alone, Pope John Paul II visited Ireland in 1979.
I have not laughed this much in bed since my feather pillow burst. It’s hard to believe this came out in 2001 and I’m only finding out about it now! I can’t even compare it to another book I’ve read that was anywhere near as funny. As with Father Ted, some of the humour is ridiculously unreal, some is overt and other stuff is very subtle, but it’s all very funny. I cannot think of a funnier book I have read.
The fictional subject of this biography is Eion O’Cellaigh, a civil servant who does his best to stop the Ireland he grew up in from disappearing. He does this by using his limited government powers to ban any book, music, play or poem that he believes might corrupt the good God-fearing people of Ireland. His job is only part of the fun though, there’s also his tips on how to have a long lasting marriage without ever having to indulge that ‘sex’ business, and how through his efforts alone, Pope John Paul II visited Ireland in 1979.
I have not laughed this much in bed since my feather pillow burst. It’s hard to believe this came out in 2001 and I’m only finding out about it now! I can’t even compare it to another book I’ve read that was anywhere near as funny. As with Father Ted, some of the humour is ridiculously unreal, some is overt and other stuff is very subtle, but it’s all very funny. I cannot think of a funnier book I have read.
October 16, 2021
Another satire on religion from one of the co-creators of Father Ted, I enjoyed it overall and it did make me laugh out loud a good deal, though I'd say it was more a case of laughing a lot at the beginning (the first 50 pages, at least) and then slightly less as it went on. There were also some bits which felt like a bit of a misfire (the constant meanness regarding Maire's appearance, his lack of an interest in sex), while it's a little repetitious at times, but despite these issues I'm fond of it and if you're a fan of the man's writing I'd definitely recommend it. 3.25/5
October 8, 2018
Side-splitting.
November 30, 2018
Delightful Irish satire! Something that tumbled out of a cupboard during my brief sabbatical that I spent mostly at home. Must read.
August 26, 2021
Parts were funny, but this book wasn’t for me
January 4, 2024
Hard to tell truth from fiction but this is genuine satire at its most cutting. I loved it except for some of the vulgarities. The is a true talent with wit. The author, through his alter-ego as book subject, courageously takes on his country, his Irish culture as well as the Catholic church.
August 6, 2016
For the first three quarters I found this book to repetitive, inappropriate and all over the place. While easy to read, I found the humour not to my liking as well as what appeared to be an abuse of exclamation marks.
In digressing, for the last quarter I felt I had finally picked up the 'tongue in cheek' tune of the writer and was able to appreciate the humour and life of Eoin, in which gave some out loud laughing.
I dare say that if I was to re-read the book it would probably be enjoyable from start to finish.
In digressing, for the last quarter I felt I had finally picked up the 'tongue in cheek' tune of the writer and was able to appreciate the humour and life of Eoin, in which gave some out loud laughing.
I dare say that if I was to re-read the book it would probably be enjoyable from start to finish.
November 25, 2018
Ireland's development over the past century as described by the vivid wit and staunch Catholic, Eoin O' Ceallaigh.
Arthur Mathews' savagely funny satire is crammed with sly references to amuse readers. But at the centre of it all is the hypocrisy of the holier than thou Eoin, who cannot enjoy life without getting one over on his peers.
Arthur Mathews' savagely funny satire is crammed with sly references to amuse readers. But at the centre of it all is the hypocrisy of the holier than thou Eoin, who cannot enjoy life without getting one over on his peers.
February 21, 2021
To me, this is a confusing attempt to mix satire with facts but the outcome does not create a great book. On the other hand, if is was portrayed through a TV series, like Father Ted, you would have a winning combination. Stick to the TV series Arthur.
July 3, 2012
Really funny pseudo biography written by one of the creators of Father Ted.
Amazingly bizarre!
Amazingly bizarre!
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews