We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It cover art

We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It

A Memoir of My Irish Boyhood

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It

By: Tom Phelan
Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

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 backbreaking.

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.

©2019 Tom Phelan (P)2019 Simon & Schuster Art & Literature Authors Cultural & Regional Memoir Village Heartfelt

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Hungry Road cover art
The Hurley Maker's Son cover art
I Can Jump Puddles cover art
The Irish Nanny cover art
An Irish Country Doctor cover art
Strumpet City cover art
Saving Ceecee Honeycutt cover art
This Time Together cover art
Gypsy Boy cover art
Obasan cover art
Black Potatoes cover art
Ill Will cover art
Cider with Rosie cover art
The Woman of the House cover art
The Answer Is... cover art
The Little Orphan Girl cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I found it very difficult to listen to the narrator , for me it killed the great book .

Hard to listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.