The street where I grew up: Ardal O’Hanlon, 56

I grew up in a small town in Ireland where my father was the family doctor. Our house dates back to 1910, we inherited it from the previous GP and there were extensions and extensions as we expanded as a family.

My poor mother took us out one after another: the eldest was my older sister Fiona, my older brother Rory was a year older than me, then my younger brothers Neale and Shane and sister Dearbhla came along.

As a Catholic family, we ate fish on Fridays and went to Sunday mass. We had a pig farm next to us and our other neighbors were a family of 13 children; There was a grain store across the street.

It was a nice town with a Thursday market. The streets were full of stalls and there was some partying – I once saw a naked boxing match.

I always shared a bedroom with up to two siblings, so we were very close. We would usually dress alike and wear discarded clothes.

I have problems with the way my mom dresses me. My communion dress was a collarless two-piece dress with a gold buckle – I looked like one of Trumpton’s cops.

Everyone in rural Ireland back then came from a large family; football games would consist of up to 30 children and we would use the gigantic grain warehouse door as one goal and the pig farm door as the other. Our bedtime was earlier than the neighbors and it was embarrassing when my mother called us to bed from the upstairs window of the house.

My father entered politics in 1977. He was a candidate for the leading centre-right party of the period, Fianna Fáil, and was elected. He was available as a doctor, always on duty, often working in exchange for products.

Ardal (right) with his siblings in the courtyard of his childhood home. He says everyone in rural Ireland comes from a large family; football matches will consist of a maximum of 30 children

When he became a politician, everything was clear and there were hundreds of people around us. He ran between his medical clinic in the prefab on the side of the house and his political clinic in the good room out front.

Someone once asked if he could bring Hawaii Five-O back to TV, and I’m sure he called the TV station!

We lived a few miles south of the Northern Ireland border and were aware of the carnage on the other side. I was an old-fashioned kid who read the newspaper every day and watched the news at night with reports of car bombs and murders.

One night, at election time, we got a call saying that there was a bomb in our house and we had ten minutes to get out. I remember my mother pulling us out of bed and shouting hysterically: “Go, go, go!”

We were put in the car and taken to someone else’s house a mile away. It turned out to be a false alarm, but it made a great impression.

I had an exciting story to tell at school, but I can only imagine the horror my family went through.

I’ve always had an interest in storytelling, and my mother’s sister, Aunt Maura, encouraged me to tell tall stories full of sweets. I joined comedy in college and after I left I started Comedy Cellar with some friends in Dublin.

The kind of things I’ve heard, all the comings and goings of my childhood home, have affected my posture, and the way people talk – the annoying tone and humor – is reflected in my own writing.

• Ardal Brouhaha’s novel was published by Harper Collins.