[3][4] The books, entitled The Mammy, The Chisellers, The Granny, and The Young Wan, were first published in Ireland, before being made available in the United Kingdom.

Following the film's success, O'Carroll wrote a series of stories adapted from the books, in which he played Mrs. Browne (now spelled 'Brown') and cast the rest of the family – including many of his own relatives as characters.

In turn, while these 7 straight-to-video features were released over the next few years, they would then also become adapted into the 7 stage plays later performed in rotation on the various tours, originally just in Ireland.

During this time, O'Carroll took the show on the road, appearing in a series of Mrs. Brown plays in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

In early 2009, O'Carroll was approached by BBC Scotland producer Stephen McCrum[6][7][8] to create a television series based on the stage show.

O'Carroll recruited an expanded cast mainly from family members and wrote a pilot, but production was held back a year due to the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand incident.

[16] According to Gary Hollywood, who played Dino, on a radio interview, a Mrs. Brown's Boys Christmas Special for the year 2013 would be recorded in May 2013, due to a busy schedule of UK touring and the potential of filming the Mrs. Brown film (due for cinematic release in June 2014) from September to November 2013.

The show takes a more irregular concept as bloopers such as characters getting lines wrong or corpsing; and set, camera, and prop faults are not edited out of the episodes.

The show also has a number of recurring running gags; examples include Agnes' blissful ignorance of Rory's obvious homosexuality in series 1, Dermot's outlandish costumes and alliterative tongue-twisters in relation to his job as a promoter, and in the festive specials, a Christmas tree that typically malfunctions on Agnes with "hilarious" consequences.

[8][27] "The whole thing is entirely predicated on viewers finding a man dressed as a foul-mouthed elderly woman intrinsically funny", wrote Bernice Harrison, TV reviewer with The Irish Times.

"If you do, you're away in a hack, and the viewing figures are astronomical, but if you don't, and you think that died out with Les Dawson and Dick Emery, then it's a long half-hour.

The Daily Telegraph's Sam Richards noted that the show's comedy has a "rudimentary nature", consisting of "an old-fashioned blend of silly voices and slapstick, played out in front of a live studio audience who collapse into giggles at the mere mention of the word "willy".

[31] Bruce Dessau in The Guardian described it as a "predictable, vulgar vehicle for Irish comedian Brendan O'Carroll", and in comparing it with other sitcoms said "No amount of 'fecks' are going to make Mrs Brown's Boys a classic like Father Ted".

To love Mrs Brown, one must be thrilled by a man in a hairnet and dinner lady tabard saying the F-word roughly once every ten minutes, egged on by a loyal studio audience so whipped to hysteria by him that one can hear pants being soiled and spleens exploding with mirth.

"[33] Paul English of the Daily Record blasted the show as "lazy, end-of-pier trash rooted in the 1970s... One half-hour of this actually made me angry.

"[34] Metro called it "jaw-droppingly past its sell-by date" and "not even remotely funny", saying that the BBC should "hang its head in shame" for showing "this RTÉ drivel".

[37] [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46] More than one million copies of the first series of Mrs. Brown's Boys were sold on DVD in Ireland and the UK between October 2011 and February 2012.

In January 2014, whilst speaking to the Radio Times, Brendan O'Carroll said "We're already working on a sequel – Mrs Brown's Boys D'Movie 2".

After playing to acceptable sized audiences across Ireland and the north of England, O'Carroll decided to write a fourth stage play entitled For the Love of Mrs. Brown in 2007 he then recorded the live show and made it available onto DVD via his own website in a bid to increase the popularity of the stage show.

A non-broadcast pilot was recorded in late 2012,[103] A full series was due to be broadcast in 2013 but O'Carroll turned it down, stating that he did not need to water down the Mrs. Brown brand.

[104][105] The format was brought up again in 2014, this time entitled The Guess List with Rob Brydon now hosting the full series.

[107][108] In the Spring of 2012, O'Carroll turned down an offer to create a one-off special for HBO with the option of a full series if the show was well received as he wished to spend his time with family.

[109][110] On 23 July 2016, Mrs. Brown's Boys had a one-off live episode, "Mammy Sutra", to celebrate 60 years of comedy on BBC.

During 2018, Brendan O'Carroll hosted a quiz show for the BBC called For Facts Sake as himself, with rotating members of the Mrs. Brown's Boys cast as team captains.

[111] The television show has been adapted for francophone audiences in Canada as Madame Lebrun, with the lead role performed by Benoît Brière.

[113] The show has been also adapted for the audiences in Greece as Super Mammy and began aired on 3 April 2022, on ANT1, with the lead role performed by Markos Seferlis.

[114][115] This show was also adapted in Czech Republic as PanMáma and has aired on TV Nova back in 2013, with the lead role performed by Rostislav Novák.