By Memory Inspired | Séamas O'Reilly

How do our memories affect how we live our lives? Writer Séamas O'Reilly's 'Remembering Ireland' project satirised our national obsession with historical memory, and the layers of distortion behind the question 'Do you remember this?’. As he became a father for the first time, Séamas explored his own memories in his memoir 'Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?', reflecting on how his own father had raised 11 children after losing the love of his life. The memoir also considers place and identity, exploring the troubled Derry of Séamas’s childhood, shedding light on a place often shrouded in stereotyped darkness. On this episode Christopher Kissane speaks to Séamas about what happens when memory and reality intersect, the significance of place, culture and identity, and the impact of Brexit in Northern Ireland.