Séamas O'Reilly: On Tommy Bowe and that 'ten siblings!?' slip-up

"Within micro-seconds, we become the centre of a meme which would entwine myself and Tommy in a braid of mutual empathy for all time."

Within micro-seconds, we become the centre of a meme which would entwine myself and Tommy in a braid of mutual empathy for all time.

This week, I received a video in my inbox. It was one I have received, without any exaggeration, over a thousand times, and in every conceivable version and format. It concerned an interview I did two years ago. An interview that started one of the strangest things I’ve ever been the centre of and which, I now realise, I’ve never written about since.

It was August 2021, by which time I was getting quite used to being interviewed. This was the 12th I’d done that week for my book, Did Ye Hear Mammy Died. It had surprised everyone by doing quite well, not least because — though obviously excellent and extremely funny — it was a book about my mother’s death, and written by a studiously non-famous person.