Books

Michael Redmond on resurrecting Eamon, Older Brother of Jesus as a novel

Based on the Irish Sea scrolls, the comedian’s book follows Jesus’s lesser-known Irish brother

Michael Redmond: the comedian, best known perhaps as Fr Stone in Father Ted, is now author of Eamon, Older Brother of Jesus

Michael Redmond
Mon Feb 21 2022 - 06:59

Eamon, Older Brother of Jesus is based on my BBC Radio 4 series which was later to be banned by the BBC on the grounds of blasphemy. However, Eamon, older brother of Jesus, is now being resurrected in true family tradition in the form of my book. It tells the hilarious tale of how Jesus’s lesser-known Irish brother tries to upstage his younger sibling who also happens to be the Messiah.

Not many people are aware that Jesus had an older brother named Eamon who was not prepared to remain in the shadow of his brother, having to toil away in the family carpentry shop while Jesus soaked up all the fame delivering sermons to the multitudes and performing miracles. But this is Eamon’s story, taken from the Irish Sea scrolls which I found washed up on the Wexford coast a number of years ago, still miraculously preserved.

I also discovered from the scrolls that the Holy Family were originally Irish, both Mary and Joseph having independently emigrated from Ireland to Nazareth to escape the ravages of the mangetout famine which was sweeping across Ireland at the time. They had both joined the local Nazareth Irish Club where they met and fell in love. Although it is not clear from the scrolls if Mary already knew her destiny at the time concerning the Immaculate Conception, there is no doubt that Joseph was oblivious to the fact that he was later to become the vicarious father of the Son of God.

Eamon is very confused as a young child as to why Jesus’s true father, Almighty God, doesn’t live with the family in their house in Nazareth or why he never even comes to visit and he fails to get a satisfactory answer from either his father or mother.

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You will learn in the book, from a diary which Eamon kept at the time, that Jesus’s first attempts at performing miracles didn’t always go as planned before he managed to perfect the art. Eamon mentions in the scrolls about a botched attempt by Jesus to help an unfortunate leper’s arm to regrow, which at first seemed to be successful, until the arm didn’t stop growing and became a 15ft-long tentacle instead.

Eamon also tells us how he had to put up with the constant attentions of a couple of Jesus’s groupies, Karen and Imelda, two local hairdressers who were desperate to know what kind of conditioner Jesus used and wanted Eamon to ask Jesus to take part in a charity “hairdressing-athon” that they had hoped to organise.

So, how did Eamon cope with the fame of his younger brother and how did his attempt to set himself up as an alternative Messiah pan out ... recruiting some local fishmongers to be his apostles, as opposed to his brother’s fishermen?

The book has already received a couple of rave reviews.

“ A must read for all Catholics…and non-Catholics. “ Pope Francis

“ This didn’t come from the pen of Michael Redmond…it was me who wrote this very funny book and he has plagiarised it. “ Joe Pasquale

Eamon, Older Brother of Jesus is my first book and is out now on Amazon, in either ebook or paperback. So, it'd be good if loads of people bought it!.....Go on, go on, go on, go on, as Mrs Doyle would say!