Irish Goodbye: The Greatest Gift Our Ancestors Ever Left Us

Just kidding —this is a notebook. Or as we call it, a Phantom Book.With a cover weird enough to make people quietly question your life choices, it’s best left in strategic places:on your coffee table,on a friend’s coffee table right before their date comes over,or on your desk at work.On the Back: MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE THE IRISH GOODBYE IS AN ANCIENT CULTURAL TRADITION.IT IS NOT.It began in 1887 when Seamus O’Donovan, Padraig’s great-great-grandfather, grew tired of a neighbor’s gathering and simply left without saying goodbye to anyone.His wife Brigid was furious and deeply embarrassed.So she did what any mortified Irish woman with a sharp tongue and a strong relationship with Catholic guilt would do.She invented a tradition.Within days, the Irish Goodbye had been established as a proud cultural custom, and anyone questioning it was quickly corrected through a combination of public shaming, religious guilt, and Brigid’s general unpleasantness.This book is Padraig O’Donovan proudly telling the true story of how his family accidentally gave the world its greatest social innovation.Leaving.Without saying goodbye to anyone.“I never say goodbye before leaving a party, but I also never say hello unless you’re working the keg.”— Sean McNulty“Brigid O’Donovan was a fearsome woman with a back like a door. God rest her.”— Declan Moriarty Read more