Tom Phelan

Profile URL http://www.tomphelan.net

Research Interests Writer
--NONFICTION:
We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It: A Memoir of My Irish Boyhood (2019). 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. Phelan, who was born and raised in County Laois, spent his formative years working with his wise but demanding father as he sought to wrest a livelihood from a farm that was often wet, muddy, and back-breaking.

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

--FICTION: In the Season of the Daisies, Iscariot, Derrycloney, The Canal Bridge, Nailer, Lies the Mushroom Pickers Told

Novels have examined the effects of ancient animosities, Irish industrial schools, Irish soldiers in the Great War, relationships in rural communities, and the priesthood.

Institutional Affiliation Independent Scholar

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