Tom Phelan talk in Abbeyleix

Tom Phelan returns home to to discuss his latest book, We Were Rich and We Didn’t Know It: A Memoir of My Irish Boyhood in Abbeyleix next weekend.

In the memoir, Phelan writes about his formative years in Mountmellick, working with his father as he sought to wrest a livelihood from a farm that was often wet, muddy, and back-breaking.

It was the 1940s and 50s, a time before rural electrification, the telephone, and indoor plumbing; a time when small farmers struggled to survive; a time when the main modes of travel were bicycle and animal cart; a time when the Church exerted enormous control over the country.

Tom Phelan, who now lives in New York, is also the author of six novels.

For additional information, please see www.tomphelan.net.

The talk takes place on Thursday, September 19 at 6 pm at the Abbeyleix Library.