The Real Mrs Brown

Who'd have thought a potty-mouthed Dublin mammy with a cream cardigan and elasticated tan tights could storm British TV screens and leave a nation helpless with laughter? Brendan O'Carroll performs to tens of thousands of people a night in packed-out stadiums across the country. In the last four years his TV show has become a number 1 ratings success and he's even making a movie. But Brendan has had to battle hard for success. The youngest of eleven children, his mother was Maureen O'Carroll, a former nun who went on to become the first woman to be elected to the Irish parliament. Brendan adored his strong, widowed mother - and she later became the inspiration for his indomitable character Agnes Brown. However, the family endured poverty reminiscent of Angela's Ashes and Brendan saw no option but to leave school at 12 to work. He married young and for decades struggled to make ends meet. Eventually, bankrupt and desperate, Brendan went to see a fortune teller who told him she could see his future achieving worldwide success as a comedian and actor. At first Brendan laughed at the notion, but then he thought of how much his friends loved his gags, and decided to give it a go... This is the magical story of how a loveable Irishman with a wig and a wit as caustic as battery acid surprised everyone - most of all himself - by becoming one of the best-loved comedians in the world. It is a story of hardship, heartbreak, and talent and will remind readers afresh that sometimes the facts can be even more extraordinary than the fiction.

Brendan O'Carroll now performs to tens of thousands of people a night in packed-out stadiums across the country. In the last four years he has become one of the most popular comedians in the UK and his show MRS BROWN'S BOYS reaches more viewers than Downton Abbey and Call the Midwife. But this wasn't always the always case and for a long time it looked like Brendan would have to walk away from the comedy career he loved. Brendan was the youngest of eleven children, born to Maureen O'Carroll, a former nun who went on to become the first woman to be elected to the Irish parliament. Brendan adored his strong, brave mother and she would later become the inspiration for Brendan's indomitable Mrs Brown character. The family endured Angela's Ashes-style poverty and though food was scarce, the house was full of love. Brendan left school at 12 and soon after met his first girlfriend Doreen, who a few short years later surprised him by agreeing to marry him before Brendan had even considered asking her. By his early 20s Brendan had two kids and worked as a window cleaner, factory worker, printer's labourer and a farmer. A few years later he opened a pub bang in the middle of two warring neighbourhoods in Dublin's Northside, which according to Brendan, 'was like having a pub between Beirut and Baghdad'. The pub eventually became enormously successful - largely due to Brendan's talent for entertaining the punters - but Brendan was left devastated when his business partner stole everything from the business and left him bankrupt. His mother Maureen died shortly afterwards. Desperate, Brendan went to see a fortune teller who told him she could see his future achieving worldwide success as a comedian and actor. At first Brendan laughed at the notion, but then he thought of how much his customers in the pub loved his gags, and decided to give it a go ... This is the story of how a comic from Dublin surprised everyone - most of all himself - by becoming one of the most successful comedians in the world. It is a story of hardship, heartbreak, and talent and will remind readers afresh that sometimes the facts can be even more extraordinary than the fiction.

When Brendan O'Carroll, creator and star of Mrs Brown's Boys, stood on stage to collect his first BAFTA for the phenomenally successful comedy series in 2012, it marked a new milestone in his incredible career. Finally, he was being acknowledged as a worldwide sensation in his roe as the irrepressible 'Mammy' Agnes Brown. Over the last few years, Brendan has spread his wings to taste success as an author, a playwright, a comedian, an actor, a television star and more, picking up major awards along the way. But it hasn't always been a bed of roses for the Dubliner, who started off life working as a waiter before evolving into the hardest working man in showbiz. Born in 1955 as the youngest of 11 children, he grew up in a two-bedroom corporation house in the rough-and-tumble working class area of Finglas in north Dublin. After his father Gerard died, when Brendan was just seven years old, his formidable mother Maureen - who influenced Brendan's future career - raised him on her own. Life truly didn't begin until 40 for Brendan, who left school aged just 12 and tried his hand at anything to earn a living, including jobs as a milkman, DJ, bar manager and painter and decorator. But after being persuaded to have a go on the comedy circuit it was the beginning of a new dawn in Brendan's life that would see him become the man with the Midas touch. In the years since, his work rate has been phenomenal as his earthy comedy has become a global hit, he found love again and with his second wife and co-star Jennifer Gibney and he has become rich beyond his wildest dreams thanks to his foul-mouthed matriarch Mrs Brown.

'Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown' is an essay by Virginia Woolf published in 1924 which explores modernity. Woolf addresses what she sees as the arrival of modernism, with the much-cited phrase "that in or about December, 1910, human character changed", referring to Roger Fry's exhibition Manet and the Post-Impressionists. She argued that this in turn led to a change in human relations, and thence to change in "religion, conduct, politics, and literature". She envisaged modernism as inherently unstable, with society and culture in flux. She develops her argument through the examination of two generations of writers. Her argument is that as times change, writers and the tools that they use must evolve, "the tools of one generation are useless to the next". She places Bennett in the Edwardians, and the subjects of his attacks as "Georgians" to reflect the change of monarch in 1910 that coincided with Fry's exhibition. She characterizes Georgian writers in modernist terms as impressionistic, and those that are "telling the truth."

Called upon to inventory the estate of a wealthy woman, Emilia Brown, a frugal and unnoticed woman in small-town Rhode Island, discovers an exquisitely tailored Oscar de la Renta dress in the woman's collection and changes her life to be able to purchase the dress.

"Mammy" is what Irish children call their mothers and The Mammy is Agnes Browne—a widow struggling to raise seven children in a North Dublin neighborhood in the 1960s. Popular Irish comedian Brendan O'Carroll chronicles the comic misadventures of this large and lively family with raw humor and great affection. Forced to be mother, father, and referee to her battling clan, the ever-resourceful Agnes Browne occasionally finds a spare moment to trade gossip and quips with her best pal Marion Monks (alias "The Kaiser") and even finds herself pursued by the amorous Frenchman who runs the local pizza parlor. Like the novels of Roddy Doyle, The Mammy features pitch-perfect dialogue, lightning wit, and a host of colorful characters. Earthy and exuberant, the novel brilliantly captures the brash energy and cheerful irreverence of working-class Irish life. Now a major motion picture starring Anjelica Huston

Mrs. Brown's A to Y of Everything is Brendan O'Carroll's hilarious follow-up to the bestselling Mrs. Brown's Family Handbook. If there's one Mammy in the world who knows what's what, it's Mrs. Brown. Here, Agnes, star of the incredibly popular TV show Mrs. Brown's Boys, and the much anticipated Mrs. Brown's Boys D'Movie, follows up her bestselling Mrs. Brown's Family Handbook with an A to Y (who really needs 'Z's anyway?) of modern life. In it, Agnes explores everything from pandas to piles, from biscuits to The Big Bang and from handwriting to hairdryers. Peppered with her inimitable humour and full of hilarious photos, the A to Y of Everything is to your Christmas stocking what sausages are to a toad-in-the-hole.