He wrote Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha' in the 1990's; although the scene is set in Ireland in the 1960's where great changes were taking place. Dublin, the main area, was expanding, where building sites, and new and unfinished houses were common. The 1960's in Ireland were hard for families; divorce was still illegal because of the strong Catholic following. Family break ups were seen as embarrassing and shameful, so through the developments of child psychology, Roddy Doyle uses this to help him create Paddy's world looking closely at how children think and behave. It is through this that he presents Paddy and his friend's views of the world. .
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Both Roddy Doyle and Charles Dickens have put their childhood sights and experiences into their novels. This creates a very important effect, it helps the reader get a clearer picture of each child's life because it helps them get lost in the characters that they actually believe what they are reading is real it may also give them a better understanding of the characters thoughts and feelings if they think that that could actually happen. It helps make the novel more realistic therefore it doesn't seem so far fetched. This is very effective because it makes the reader far more interested.
Both writers base some of the thoughts and feelings of the child characters Davy and Paddy, by looking back at their own lives. A good example is where Roddy Doyle has looked back at his own childhood in the extract The Gang. It is a chapter in which Paddy and his friends are in a gang. It is quite a cruel gang because it involves being beaten with a poker if they don't say a word that is considered bad enough by the leader. The person who says the worst word then adopts the word as his name. For example from henceforth thou will be called f*ck. Roddy Doyle said when interviewed that when he wrote this chapter I was reaching back to my childhood for the memories and inspiration to write the book, the gang thing seemed important because there was always a gang.
