O’Carroll’s Mrs Brown owes life to two monumental twists of fate
Brendan O’Carroll, the hit show’s creator, wouldn’t be here today had near-death experiences involving the War of Independence and the Titanic gone differently, according to a new biography on the Dublin funnyman.
The Man Who Is Mrs Brown pinpoints the darkest moment in the O’Carroll family history to 1920, at the height of the War Of Independence, when Brendan’s Republican grandfather, Peter, was shot dead on a Dublin street by the Black and Tans.
Peter’s youngest son, Gerard O’Carroll — then just nine and who would grow up to be Brendan’s father — almost lost his life after he was wounded by the same British soldiers.
However, young Gerard’s life was saved when a journalist came upon the scene and carried the young boy to the nearby Richmond Hospital.
The next day, over breakfast, the journalist recounted the story to his family, including his eight-year-old daughter, Maureen. As fate would have it, Maureen grew up to fall in love with Gerard, the boy whose life her father saved, and they would have 11 children — the last to arrive being a certain Brendan O’Carroll.
The astonishing story was unearthed by the book’s writer, David O’Dornan, from a rare US interview O’Carroll, 58, gave to Washington radio programme Fresh Air in 1999.
In the interview, O’Carroll said: “He [my grandfather] owned a small store — a kind of a drugstore, candy and cigarette store — in Manor Street in Dublin. And although he was quite safe and his cover hadn’t ever been blown, his three eldest sons, my father’s three eldest brothers, were active soldiers. There weren’t covert soldiers. And they were well-known.
“This British contingent came around to the house at 7pm one evening and said, ‘Look, we want to know where your three sons are. You know, we’re coming back here tonight. And if you don’t have the information where your sons are, we’ll kill you’.
“He took it with a grain of salt. And they arrived back at about 10pm and the three sons were upstairs. When they heard the banging on the door, the sons escaped onto the roof and started to make their way across the rooftops and to get out of the area.
“My dad, who was nine at the time, he went down with his father. They didn’t even give [my grandfather] a chance to put his boots on. He opened the door, and they said: ‘Kneel down’. And they put a gun to his head and they said: ‘So where are the three boys?’ And he said: ‘I don’t know’.
“And they said: ‘Then die’. And they shot him three times — once in the head, once in the chest, and once in the stomach. And then they shot my father... and left him for dead.’”
It also emerges in the book that Brendan’s mother, Maureen — who would become the first woman elected to the Irish parliament — had fate to thank for her own existence.
Her parents were all set to elope to America in 1912 and had tickets bought for the ill-fated Titanic, only for a change of plan at the 11th hour.
Brendan shared the remarkable tale in the same Washington radio interview.
