‘We hadn’t a clue ‘til we got the telly and then we wanted to be like Dallas. We were never happy, that we knew of. We were always longing for something else, so we kept doing the same. What we wouldn’t do to go back and give ourselves a good boot up the backside.’

When actor, playwright and comedian Seamus O’Rourke first published Standing in Gaps in 2020 it found a wide audience amongst readers in rural Ireland. With a distinct talent for seeing the absurd in the ordinary, mundane lives of people who ‘had nothing better to be at’ and making it hilarious, Standing in Gaps manages to turn back time and transport the reader to a place where everything moved slowly – and in the Leitrim of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, that means really slowly.

In this memoir about family, people and time, O’Rourke finds diamond-tipped-needles in bales of really bad hay, providing laughter and stories of mayhem for his many fans.