Brendan Behan
Encyclopedia
Brendan Francis Behan was an Irish
poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright who wrote in both Irish
and English. He was also an Irish republican and a volunteer
in the Irish Republican Army.
, song writer and author of the Irish national anthem. Brendan's father Stephen Behan
, a house painter who had been active in the Irish War of Independence
, read classical literature to the children at bedtime from sources such as Zola
, Galsworthy
, and Maupassant
; his mother, Kathleen, took them on literary tours of the city. If Behan's interest in literature came from his father, his political beliefs were by his mother. She remained politically active all her life and was a personal friend of the Irish republican Michael Collins
. Brendan Behan wrote a lament to Collins, "The Laughing Boy", at the age of thirteen. The title was from the affectionate nickname Mrs. Behan gave to Collins. Kathleen published her autobiography, "Mother of All The Behans," a collaboration with her son Brian, in 1984.
Behan's uncle Peadar Kearney
wrote the Irish national anthem Amhrán na bhFiann. His brother, Dominic Behan
, was also a renowned songwriter best known for the song "The Patriot Game"; another sibling, Brian Behan
, was a prominent radical political activist and public speaker, actor, author, and playwright. Brendan and Brian did not share the same views, especially when the question of politics or nationalism arose. Brendan on his deathbed (presumably in jest) asked Cathal Goulding
, then the Chief of Staff of the IRA
, to 'have that bastard Brian shot—we've had all sorts in our family, but never a traitor!'.
A biographer Ulick O'Connor
, recounts that one day, at the age of eight, Brendan was returning home with his granny and a crony from a drinking session. A passer-by remarked, "Oh, my! Isn't it terrible ma'am to see such a beautiful child deformed?" "How dare you", said his granny. "He's not deformed, he's just drunk!"
Behan left school at 13 to follow in his father's footsteps as a house painter.
. Behan became a member of Fianna Éireann
, the youth organization of the IRA. He published his first poems and prose in the organisation's magazine, Fianna: the Voice of Young Ireland. In 1931 he also became the youngest contributor to be published in the Irish Press with his poem "Reply of Young Boy to Pro-English verses".
At sixteen, Behan joined the IRA and embarked on an unauthorised solo mission to England to blow up the Liverpool docks. He was arrested and found in possession of explosives
. Behan was sentenced to three years in a borstal
and did not return to Ireland until 1941. He wrote about these years in his autobiography, Borstal Boy
. In 1942, during the timeframe leading to the IRA's Northern Campaign
, Behan was tried for the attempted murder of two Detectives of the Garda Siochana
. The assassinations were to take place in Dublin while at a commemoration ceremony for Wolfe Tone, the father of Irish Republicanism. Sentenced to fourteen years in prison
, he was incarcerated in Mountjoy Prison
and the Curragh Camp
. These experiences were relayed in "Confessions of an Irish Rebel." Released under a general amnesty
for IRA prisoners and internees in 1946, his terrorist career was over by the age of twenty-three. Aside from a short prison sentence he received in 1947 for his part in trying to break a fellow IRA member out of a Manchester
jail, he effectively left the IRA, though he remained great friends with Cathal Goulding
.
(A Review of Literature and Art), founded by John Ryan
, that first published Behan's short stories and his first poem. Some of his early work was also published in The Bell
, the leading Irish literary magazine of the time. He also learned Irish in prison and, after his release in 1946, he spent some time in the Gaeltacht
areas of Galway
and Kerry
, where he started writing poetry in Irish. He left Ireland and all its perceived social pressures to live in Paris in the early 1950s. There he felt he could lose himself and release the artist within. Although he still drank heavily, he managed to earn a living, supposedly by writing pornography
. By the time he returned to Ireland, he had become a writer who drank too much, rather than a drinker who talked about what he was going to write. He had also developed the knowledge that in order to succeed, he would have to discipline himself. Throughout the rest of his writing career, he would rise at seven in the morning and work until noon—when the pubs opened. He began to write for various newspapers, such as The Irish Times
, and also for radio, where a play entitled "The Leaving Party" was broadcast. Additionally, he cultivated a reputation as carouser-in-chief and swayed shoulder-to-shoulder with other literati of the day that he had got to know through Envoy
and who used the pub, McDaid's, as their base: Flann O'Brien, Patrick Kavanagh
, Patrick Swift
, Anthony Cronin
, and J. P. Donleavy
. For unknown reasons he had a major falling-out with Kavanagh, who reportedly would visibly shudder at the mention of Behan's name and who referred to Behan as "evil incarnate".
Behan's fortunes changed in 1954 with the appearance of his play The Quare Fellow
—his major breakthrough at last. Originally called The Twisting of Another Rope and influenced by his time spent in jail, it chronicles the vicissitudes of prison life leading up to the execution of "the quare fellow"—a character who is never seen. The prison dialogue is vivid and laced with satire, but reveals to the reader the human detritus that surrounds capital punishment. It was produced in the Pike Theatre in Dublin. The play ran for six months. In May, 1956, The Quare Fellow opened in the Theatre Royal Stratford East
, in a production by Joan Littlewood
's Theatre Workshop
. Subsequently it transferred to the West End
. Behan generated immense publicity for The Quare Fellow as a result of a drunken appearance on the Malcolm Muggeridge
TV show. The English, relatively unaccustomed to public drunkenness in authors, took him to their hearts. A fellow guest on the show, Irish-American actor Jackie Gleason
, reportedly said about the incident: "It wasn't an act of God, but an act of Guinness!" Behan and Gleason went on to forge a friendship. Brendan loved the story of how, walking along the street in London shortly after this episode, a Cockney
approached him and exclaimed that he understood every word he had said—drunk or not—but hadn't a clue what "that bugger Muggeridge was on about!" While addled, Brendan would clamber on stage and recite the play's signature song "The Auld Triangle". The transfer of the play to Broadway provided Behan with international recognition. Rumours still abound that Littlewood's hand was all over The Quare Fellow and led to the saying, "Dylan Thomas
wrote Under Milk Wood
, Brendan Behan wrote under Littlewood". She remained a supporter, visiting him in Dublin in 1960.
In 1957, his Irish language play, An Giall (The Hostage
) opened in the Damer Theatre, Dublin. Reminiscent of Frank O'Connor's Guests of the Nation
, it portrays the detention, in a teeming Dublin house in the late 1950s, of a British conscript soldier seized by the IRA as a hostage
pending the scheduled execution in Northern Ireland of an imprisoned IRA volunteer. The hostage falls in love with an Irish convent
girl, Teresa, working as a maid in the house. Their innocent world of love is incongruous among their surroundings—the house also serves as a brothel
. In the end, the hostage dies accidentally during a bungled police raid, revealing the human cost of war—a universal suffering. The subsequent English language version The Hostage (1958), reflecting Behan's own translation from the Irish, but also much influenced by Joan Littlewood during a troubled collaboration with Behan, is a bawdy, slapstick play that adds a number of flamboyantly gay characters and bears only a limited resemblance to the original Irish language version.
His autobiographical novel Borstal Boy
followed in 1958. A vivid memoir
of his time in Hollesley Bay Borstal, Suffolk
, England, an original voice in Irish literature boomed out from its pages. The language is both acerbic and delicate, the portrayal of inmates and "screws" cerebral. For a Republican, though, it isn't a vitriolic attack on Britain; it delineates Behan's move away from violence. In one account an inmate strives to entice Brendan in chanting political slogans with him. Brendan curses and damns him in his mind, hoping he would cease his rantings-hardly the sign of a troublesome prisoner. By the end the idealistic boy rebel emerges as a realistic young man who recognises the truth: violence, especially political violence, is futile. Kenneth Tynan
, the 1950s literary critic said: "While other writers hoard words like misers, Behan sends them out on a spree, ribald, flushed, and spoiling for a fight." He was now established as one of the leading Irish writers of his generation.
He learned to speak Irish at the home of the Nolan family in the Gaeltacht area of Galway in the late forties. Drs Sinead and Maureen Nolan (daughters of the house) never heard a disrespectful word or a hint of obscenity from him during that time. He was much loved and revered by their deeply religious parents, who recognized his genius for language early. They saw his theatrics for what it was: a cover up for an exquisitely sensitive nature.
In the end his favourite drink (a lethal combination for a diabetic) was Champagne and Sherry.
Behan found fame difficult. He had long been a heavy drinker (describing himself, on one occasion, as "a drinker with a writing problem" and claiming "I only drink on two occasions—when I'm thirsty and when I'm not") and developed diabetes in the early 1960s. As his fame grew, so too did his alcohol consumption. This combination resulted in a series of famously drunken public appearances, on both stage and television.
Brendan saw that it paid to be drunk; the public wanted the witty, iconoclastic, genial "broth of a boy," and he gave that to them in abundance, exclaiming: "There's no bad publicity except an obituary." His health suffered terribly, with diabetic coma
s and seizure
s occurring regularly. Towards the end he became the caricature
of the drunken Irishman. The public who once extended their arms now closed ranks against him; publicans flung him from their premises. Although Brendan cried out that he was a writer, inside he knew his fears had materialised—he was unable to generate another classic. His last two books, Brendan Behan's Island and Brendan Behan's New York, published in 1962 and 1964 respectively, were talk books and cannot be compared to his former works. They were littered with pretentiousness and sycophancy, neither of which he would have tolerated earlier: "As Norman Mailer
said to me. ....." Arthur Miller
came up to me. ..." "One day with Groucho Marx
. ..." Both works were tape-recorded, which Brendan hated. He preferred to write longhand or to type.
Behan had married Beatrice Salkeld (the daughter of painter Cecil Salkeld) in 1955. A daughter, Blanaid, was born in 1963. Love, however, wasn't enough to bring Behan back from his alcoholic abyss. By early March 1964, the end was in sight. Collapsing at the Harbour Lights bar, he was transferred to the Meath Hospital
in central Dublin, where he died, aged 41.
He was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery
, where he received an Irish Republican Army
funeral. En route to the graveyard, thousands lined the streets.
Irish literature
For a comparatively small island, Ireland has made a disproportionately large contribution to world literature. Irish literature encompasses the Irish and English languages.-The beginning of writing in Irish:...
poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright who wrote in both Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
and English. He was also an Irish republican and a volunteer
Volunteer (Irish republican)
Volunteer, often abbreviated Vol., is a term used by a number of Irish republican paramilitary organisations to describe their members. Among these have been the various forms of the Irish Republican Army and the Irish National Liberation Army...
in the Irish Republican Army.
Early life
Behan was born in the inner city of Dublin on 9 February 1923 into an educated working class family. He lived in a house on Russell Street near Mountjoy Square owned by his grandmother, Christine English, who owned a number of properties in the area. Also living in the area was his uncle Peadar KearneyPeadar Kearney
Peadar Kearney was an Irish republican and composer of numerous rebel songs. In 1907 he wrote the lyrics to "The Soldier's Song" , now the Irish national anthem.-Background:...
, song writer and author of the Irish national anthem. Brendan's father Stephen Behan
Stephen Behan
Stephen Behan was an Irish republican who was father of writers Brendan, Brian and Dominic Behan.Behan lived in a house in Russell Street on the Northside of Dublin which belonged to his mother Christine English, who owned a number of properties in the area...
, a house painter who had been active in the Irish War of Independence
Irish War of Independence
The Irish War of Independence , Anglo-Irish War, Black and Tan War, or Tan War was a guerrilla war mounted by the Irish Republican Army against the British government and its forces in Ireland. It began in January 1919, following the Irish Republic's declaration of independence. Both sides agreed...
, read classical literature to the children at bedtime from sources such as Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
, Galsworthy
John Galsworthy
John Galsworthy OM was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter...
, and Maupassant
Guy de Maupassant
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form's finest exponents....
; his mother, Kathleen, took them on literary tours of the city. If Behan's interest in literature came from his father, his political beliefs were by his mother. She remained politically active all her life and was a personal friend of the Irish republican Michael Collins
Michael Collins (Irish leader)
Michael "Mick" Collins was an Irish revolutionary leader, Minister for Finance and Teachta Dála for Cork South in the First Dáil of 1919, Director of Intelligence for the IRA, and member of the Irish delegation during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations. Subsequently, he was both Chairman of the...
. Brendan Behan wrote a lament to Collins, "The Laughing Boy", at the age of thirteen. The title was from the affectionate nickname Mrs. Behan gave to Collins. Kathleen published her autobiography, "Mother of All The Behans," a collaboration with her son Brian, in 1984.
Behan's uncle Peadar Kearney
Peadar Kearney
Peadar Kearney was an Irish republican and composer of numerous rebel songs. In 1907 he wrote the lyrics to "The Soldier's Song" , now the Irish national anthem.-Background:...
wrote the Irish national anthem Amhrán na bhFiann. His brother, Dominic Behan
Dominic Behan
Dominic Behan was an Irish songwriter, short story writer, novelist and playwright who wrote in both Irish and English. He was also a committed socialist and Irish Republican...
, was also a renowned songwriter best known for the song "The Patriot Game"; another sibling, Brian Behan
Brian Behan
Brian Behan was an Irish writer and trade unionist.Behan was born in Dublin, the son of Stephen Behan, younger brother of Brendan Behan and older brother of Dominic Behan...
, was a prominent radical political activist and public speaker, actor, author, and playwright. Brendan and Brian did not share the same views, especially when the question of politics or nationalism arose. Brendan on his deathbed (presumably in jest) asked Cathal Goulding
Cathal Goulding
Cathal Goulding was Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army and the Official IRA.One of seven children born into a republican family in East Arran Street in the north inner city of Dublin, Goulding was involved as teenager in Fianna Éireann, the IRA youth wing which he joined with his...
, then the Chief of Staff of the IRA
Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916...
, to 'have that bastard Brian shot—we've had all sorts in our family, but never a traitor!'.
A biographer Ulick O'Connor
Ulick O'Connor
Ulick O'Connor is an Irish writer, historian and critic.-Early life:Born in Rathgar, County Dublin in 1928, O'Connor attended St. Mary's College, Rathmines and later University College Dublin, where he studied law and philosophy, becoming known as a keen sporting participant, especially in boxing,...
, recounts that one day, at the age of eight, Brendan was returning home with his granny and a crony from a drinking session. A passer-by remarked, "Oh, my! Isn't it terrible ma'am to see such a beautiful child deformed?" "How dare you", said his granny. "He's not deformed, he's just drunk!"
Behan left school at 13 to follow in his father's footsteps as a house painter.
Republican activities
In 1937, the family moved to a new local authority housing scheme in CrumlinCrumlin, Dublin
Crumlin is suburb in Southside Dublin, Ireland. It is the site of Ireland's largest hospital for children.-Location:Crumlin covers the area from the River Poddle near the KCR to the Drimnagh Road, to Bunting Road, and is situated not far from the city centre, on the Southside of Dublin city....
. Behan became a member of Fianna Éireann
Fianna Éireann
The name Fianna Éireann , also written Fianna na hÉireann and Na Fianna Éireann , has been used by various Irish republican youth movements throughout the 20th and 21st centuries...
, the youth organization of the IRA. He published his first poems and prose in the organisation's magazine, Fianna: the Voice of Young Ireland. In 1931 he also became the youngest contributor to be published in the Irish Press with his poem "Reply of Young Boy to Pro-English verses".
At sixteen, Behan joined the IRA and embarked on an unauthorised solo mission to England to blow up the Liverpool docks. He was arrested and found in possession of explosives
Explosive material
An explosive material, also called an explosive, is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure...
. Behan was sentenced to three years in a borstal
Borstal
A borstal was a type of youth prison in the United Kingdom, run by the Prison Service and intended to reform seriously delinquent young people. The word is sometimes used loosely to apply to other kinds of youth institution or reformatory, such as Approved Schools and Detention Centres. The court...
and did not return to Ireland until 1941. He wrote about these years in his autobiography, Borstal Boy
Borstal Boy
Borstal Boy is an autobiographical 1958 book by Brendan Behan. The story depicts a young, fervently idealistic Behan who loses his naïveté over the three years of his sentence to a juvenile borstal, softening his radical Republican stance and warming to his fellow British prisoners...
. In 1942, during the timeframe leading to the IRA's Northern Campaign
Northern Campaign (IRA)
Northern Campaign is a term used to describe attacks involving volunteers of the Irish Republican Army during the Second World War between September 1942 and December 1944. It was a plan conceived by the then IRA Northern Command to launch attacks within Northern Ireland during this period...
, Behan was tried for the attempted murder of two Detectives of the Garda Siochana
Garda Síochána
, more commonly referred to as the Gardaí , is the police force of Ireland. The service is headed by the Commissioner who is appointed by the Irish Government. Its headquarters are located in the Phoenix Park in Dublin.- Terminology :...
. The assassinations were to take place in Dublin while at a commemoration ceremony for Wolfe Tone, the father of Irish Republicanism. Sentenced to fourteen years in prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
, he was incarcerated in Mountjoy Prison
Mountjoy Prison
Mountjoy Prison , founded as Mountjoy Gaol, nicknamed The Joy, is a medium security prison located in Phibsboro in the centre of Dublin, Ireland. It has the largest prison population in Ireland.The current prison governor is Mr...
and the Curragh Camp
Curragh Camp
The Curragh Camp is an army base and military college located in The Curragh, County Kildare, Ireland. It is the main training centre for the Irish Army.- Brief history of the Curragh's military heritage :...
. These experiences were relayed in "Confessions of an Irish Rebel." Released under a general amnesty
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
for IRA prisoners and internees in 1946, his terrorist career was over by the age of twenty-three. Aside from a short prison sentence he received in 1947 for his part in trying to break a fellow IRA member out of a Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
jail, he effectively left the IRA, though he remained great friends with Cathal Goulding
Cathal Goulding
Cathal Goulding was Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army and the Official IRA.One of seven children born into a republican family in East Arran Street in the north inner city of Dublin, Goulding was involved as teenager in Fianna Éireann, the IRA youth wing which he joined with his...
.
Behan the writer
Behan's prison experiences were central to his future writing career. In Mountjoy he wrote his first play, The Landlady, and also began to write short stories and other prose. It was a literary magazine called EnvoyEnvoy, A Review of Literature and Art
December 1949- July 1951. Dublin, Ireland. Editor & Founder: John RyanDuring its brief existence, Envoy, A Review of Literature and Art, published the work of a broad range of writers, Irish and others. The first to publish J. P...
(A Review of Literature and Art), founded by John Ryan
John Ryan (Dublin artist)
John Ryan Dublin, Ireland was an Artist, broadcaster, publisher, critic, editor, patron and publican.John Ryan was many things but primarily a key figure in Bohemian Dublin for many years. He knew nearly every artist of note that lived in, or passed through, Dublin from the 1940s onwards...
, that first published Behan's short stories and his first poem. Some of his early work was also published in The Bell
The Bell (magazine)
The Bell Magazine Dublin, Ireland. A monthly magazine of literature and social comment which had a seminal influence on a generation of Irish intellectuals.- History :...
, the leading Irish literary magazine of the time. He also learned Irish in prison and, after his release in 1946, he spent some time in the Gaeltacht
Gaeltacht
is the Irish language word meaning an Irish-speaking region. In Ireland, the Gaeltacht, or an Ghaeltacht, refers individually to any, or collectively to all, of the districts where the government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant language, that is, the vernacular spoken at home...
areas of Galway
County Galway
County Galway is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the city of Galway. Galway County Council is the local authority for the county. There are several strongly Irish-speaking areas in the west of the county...
and Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
, where he started writing poetry in Irish. He left Ireland and all its perceived social pressures to live in Paris in the early 1950s. There he felt he could lose himself and release the artist within. Although he still drank heavily, he managed to earn a living, supposedly by writing pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
. By the time he returned to Ireland, he had become a writer who drank too much, rather than a drinker who talked about what he was going to write. He had also developed the knowledge that in order to succeed, he would have to discipline himself. Throughout the rest of his writing career, he would rise at seven in the morning and work until noon—when the pubs opened. He began to write for various newspapers, such as The Irish Times
The Irish Times
The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Kevin O'Sullivan who succeeded Geraldine Kennedy in 2011; the deputy editor is Paul O'Neill. The Irish Times is considered to be Ireland's newspaper of record, and is published every day except Sundays...
, and also for radio, where a play entitled "The Leaving Party" was broadcast. Additionally, he cultivated a reputation as carouser-in-chief and swayed shoulder-to-shoulder with other literati of the day that he had got to know through Envoy
Envoy, A Review of Literature and Art
December 1949- July 1951. Dublin, Ireland. Editor & Founder: John RyanDuring its brief existence, Envoy, A Review of Literature and Art, published the work of a broad range of writers, Irish and others. The first to publish J. P...
and who used the pub, McDaid's, as their base: Flann O'Brien, Patrick Kavanagh
Patrick Kavanagh
Patrick Kavanagh was an Irish poet and novelist. Regarded as one of the foremost poets of the 20th century, his best known works include the novel Tarry Flynn and the poems Raglan Road and The Great Hunger...
, Patrick Swift
Patrick Swift
Patrick Swift was an artist born in Dublin, Ireland. Patrick Swift was a painter and key cultural figure in Dublin and London before moving to the Algarve in southern Portugal, where he is buried in the town of Porches...
, Anthony Cronin
Anthony Cronin
Anthony Cronin is an Irish poet. He received the Marten Toonder Award for his contribution to Irish literature....
, and J. P. Donleavy
J. P. Donleavy
James Patrick Donleavy is an Irish American author, born to Irish immigrants. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II after which he moved to Ireland. In 1946 he began studies at Trinity College, Dublin, but left before taking a degree...
. For unknown reasons he had a major falling-out with Kavanagh, who reportedly would visibly shudder at the mention of Behan's name and who referred to Behan as "evil incarnate".
Behan's fortunes changed in 1954 with the appearance of his play The Quare Fellow
The Quare Fellow
The Quare Fellow is Brendan Behan's first play, first produced in 1954.The title is taken from a Hiberno-English pronunciation of queer, meaning 'strange' or 'unusual'. In context, the word lacks the denotation of homosexuality which it holds today...
—his major breakthrough at last. Originally called The Twisting of Another Rope and influenced by his time spent in jail, it chronicles the vicissitudes of prison life leading up to the execution of "the quare fellow"—a character who is never seen. The prison dialogue is vivid and laced with satire, but reveals to the reader the human detritus that surrounds capital punishment. It was produced in the Pike Theatre in Dublin. The play ran for six months. In May, 1956, The Quare Fellow opened in the Theatre Royal Stratford East
Theatre Royal Stratford East
The Theatre Royal Stratford East is a theatre in Stratford in the London Borough of Newham. Since 1953, it has been the home of the Theatre Workshop company.-History:...
, in a production by Joan Littlewood
Joan Littlewood
Joan Maud Littlewood was a British theatre director, noted for her work in developing the left-wing Theatre Workshop...
's Theatre Workshop
Theatre Workshop
Theatre Workshop is a theatre group noted for their director, Joan Littlewood. Many actors of the 1950s and 1960s received their training and first exposure with the company...
. Subsequently it transferred to the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
. Behan generated immense publicity for The Quare Fellow as a result of a drunken appearance on the Malcolm Muggeridge
Malcolm Muggeridge
Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge was an English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist. During World War II, he was a soldier and a spy...
TV show. The English, relatively unaccustomed to public drunkenness in authors, took him to their hearts. A fellow guest on the show, Irish-American actor Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...
, reportedly said about the incident: "It wasn't an act of God, but an act of Guinness!" Behan and Gleason went on to forge a friendship. Brendan loved the story of how, walking along the street in London shortly after this episode, a Cockney
Cockney
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
approached him and exclaimed that he understood every word he had said—drunk or not—but hadn't a clue what "that bugger Muggeridge was on about!" While addled, Brendan would clamber on stage and recite the play's signature song "The Auld Triangle". The transfer of the play to Broadway provided Behan with international recognition. Rumours still abound that Littlewood's hand was all over The Quare Fellow and led to the saying, "Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...
wrote Under Milk Wood
Under Milk Wood
Under Milk Wood is a 1954 radio drama by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, adapted later as a stage play. A movie version, Under Milk Wood directed by Andrew Sinclair, was released during 1972....
, Brendan Behan wrote under Littlewood". She remained a supporter, visiting him in Dublin in 1960.
In 1957, his Irish language play, An Giall (The Hostage
The Hostage (play)
The Hostage is a loose 1958 English version, with songs, adapted in a much longer text from a one-act Irish language play An Giall, by its author, Brendan Behan.-Plot:...
) opened in the Damer Theatre, Dublin. Reminiscent of Frank O'Connor's Guests of the Nation
Guests of the Nation
"Guests of the Nation" is a short story written by Frank O'Connor, first published in 1931, portraying the execution of two Englishmen held captive by the Irish Republican Army during the War for Independence. The story is split into four sections, each section taking a different tone...
, it portrays the detention, in a teeming Dublin house in the late 1950s, of a British conscript soldier seized by the IRA as a hostage
Hostage
A hostage is a person or entity which is held by a captor. The original definition meant that this was handed over by one of two belligerent parties to the other or seized as security for the carrying out of an agreement, or as a preventive measure against certain acts of war...
pending the scheduled execution in Northern Ireland of an imprisoned IRA volunteer. The hostage falls in love with an Irish convent
Convent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
girl, Teresa, working as a maid in the house. Their innocent world of love is incongruous among their surroundings—the house also serves as a brothel
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
. In the end, the hostage dies accidentally during a bungled police raid, revealing the human cost of war—a universal suffering. The subsequent English language version The Hostage (1958), reflecting Behan's own translation from the Irish, but also much influenced by Joan Littlewood during a troubled collaboration with Behan, is a bawdy, slapstick play that adds a number of flamboyantly gay characters and bears only a limited resemblance to the original Irish language version.
His autobiographical novel Borstal Boy
Borstal Boy
Borstal Boy is an autobiographical 1958 book by Brendan Behan. The story depicts a young, fervently idealistic Behan who loses his naïveté over the three years of his sentence to a juvenile borstal, softening his radical Republican stance and warming to his fellow British prisoners...
followed in 1958. A vivid memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
of his time in Hollesley Bay Borstal, Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
, England, an original voice in Irish literature boomed out from its pages. The language is both acerbic and delicate, the portrayal of inmates and "screws" cerebral. For a Republican, though, it isn't a vitriolic attack on Britain; it delineates Behan's move away from violence. In one account an inmate strives to entice Brendan in chanting political slogans with him. Brendan curses and damns him in his mind, hoping he would cease his rantings-hardly the sign of a troublesome prisoner. By the end the idealistic boy rebel emerges as a realistic young man who recognises the truth: violence, especially political violence, is futile. Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...
, the 1950s literary critic said: "While other writers hoard words like misers, Behan sends them out on a spree, ribald, flushed, and spoiling for a fight." He was now established as one of the leading Irish writers of his generation.
He learned to speak Irish at the home of the Nolan family in the Gaeltacht area of Galway in the late forties. Drs Sinead and Maureen Nolan (daughters of the house) never heard a disrespectful word or a hint of obscenity from him during that time. He was much loved and revered by their deeply religious parents, who recognized his genius for language early. They saw his theatrics for what it was: a cover up for an exquisitely sensitive nature.
In the end his favourite drink (a lethal combination for a diabetic) was Champagne and Sherry.
Decline and death
Brendan saw that it paid to be drunk; the public wanted the witty, iconoclastic, genial "broth of a boy," and he gave that to them in abundance, exclaiming: "There's no bad publicity except an obituary." His health suffered terribly, with diabetic coma
Diabetic coma
Diabetic coma is a reversible form of coma found in people with diabetes mellitus. It is a medical emergency.Three different types of diabetic coma are identified:#Severe diabetic hypoglycemia...
s and seizure
Seizure
An epileptic seizure, occasionally referred to as a fit, is defined as a transient symptom of "abnormal excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain". The outward effect can be as dramatic as a wild thrashing movement or as mild as a brief loss of awareness...
s occurring regularly. Towards the end he became the caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
of the drunken Irishman. The public who once extended their arms now closed ranks against him; publicans flung him from their premises. Although Brendan cried out that he was a writer, inside he knew his fears had materialised—he was unable to generate another classic. His last two books, Brendan Behan's Island and Brendan Behan's New York, published in 1962 and 1964 respectively, were talk books and cannot be compared to his former works. They were littered with pretentiousness and sycophancy, neither of which he would have tolerated earlier: "As Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
said to me. ....." Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...
came up to me. ..." "One day with Groucho Marx
Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...
. ..." Both works were tape-recorded, which Brendan hated. He preferred to write longhand or to type.
Behan had married Beatrice Salkeld (the daughter of painter Cecil Salkeld) in 1955. A daughter, Blanaid, was born in 1963. Love, however, wasn't enough to bring Behan back from his alcoholic abyss. By early March 1964, the end was in sight. Collapsing at the Harbour Lights bar, he was transferred to the Meath Hospital
Meath Hospital
The Meath Hospital in Dublin, Ireland was founded in 1753. Situated in the Earl of Meath's Liberty, the hospital was opened to serve the sick and poor in the crowded area of the Liberties in Dublin....
in central Dublin, where he died, aged 41.
He was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery
Glasnevin Cemetery
Glasnevin Cemetery , officially known as Prospect Cemetery, is the largest non-denominational cemetery in Ireland with an estimated 1.5 million burials...
, where he received an Irish Republican Army
Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916...
funeral. En route to the graveyard, thousands lined the streets.
Pop culture references
- One of his books, Confessions of an Irish Rebel is burnt in the movie Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
. - He was mentioned in the PreacherPreacher (comics)Preacher is a comic book series created by writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon, published by the American comic book label Vertigo , with painted covers by Glenn Fabry....
comics by Garth Ennis when the vampire Cassidy claimed to have known him in the '50s. Ennis also created a Behan analogue in HellblazerHellblazerHellblazer is a contemporary horror comic book series, originally published by DC Comics, and subsequently by the Vertigo imprint since March 1993, the month the imprint was introduced, where it remains to this day...
. - Behan's work has been a significant influence in the writings of Shane MacGowanShane MacGowanShane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan is an Irish musician and singer, best known as the original singer and songwriter of The Pogues.-History:...
, and he is the subject of "Streams Of Whiskey", a song by the Pogues. - Behan is also mentioned in the Pogues song "Thousands Are SailingThousands Are Sailing"Thousands Are Sailing" is a song by Anglo-Irish folk rock group The Pogues, released in 1988.The song is an Irish folk style ballad, written by Phil Chevron, and featured on The Pogues' album If I Should Fall from Grace with God.-Lyrics:...
" (written by Philip Chevron) with reference to the experience of Irish immigrants in New York. - Chicago-based band The TossersThe TossersThe Tossers are a six-piece Celtic punk band from Chicago, Illinois. They formed in July 1993. They have toured with Murphy's Law, Streetlight Manifesto, Catch 22, Dropkick Murphys, The Reverend Horton Heat, Flogging Molly, Street Dogs, Clutch, Sick of it All & Mastodon. They opened for The Pogues...
wrote the song Breandan O Beachain, found on their 2008 album On A Fine Spring Evening. - The MahonesThe Mahones-Biography:The Mahones are an Irish-born, Canadian Celtic punk band, influenced by the Celtic Rock revival of the late 1980's, pioneered by such bands as the Pogues and the Waterboys....
mention Behan in the song "Draggin' the Days" - In the Thin LizzyThin LizzyThin Lizzy are an Irish hard rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. Two of the founding members, drummer Brian Downey and bass guitarist/vocalist Phil Lynott met while still in school. Lynott assumed the role of frontman and led them throughout their recording career of thirteen studio albums...
song "Black Rose", in the lyric "Ah sure, Brendan where have you Behan?" - In Bob GeldofBob GeldofRobert Frederick Zenon "Bob" Geldof, KBE is an Irish singer, songwriter, author, occasional actor and political activist. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and early 1980s alongside the punk rock movement. The band had hits with his...
's song "Thinking Voyager 2 Type Things," the line "So rise up Brendan Behan like a drunken Lazarus." - In Dexys Midnight RunnersDexys Midnight RunnersDexys Midnight Runners are a British pop group with soul influences, who achieved their major success in the early to mid 1980s. They are best known for their songs "Come On Eileen" and "Geno", both of which went No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart....
' first single, "Dance Stance" (a/k/a "Burn It Down"), a top 40 hit in the UK, Behan is named among other Irish writers in the song's chorus. - Behan's version of the third verse of "The InternationaleThe InternationaleThe Internationale is a famous socialist, communist, social-democratic and anarchist anthem.The Internationale became the anthem of international socialism, and gained particular fame under the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1944, when it was that communist state's de facto central anthem...
", from Borstal BoyBorstal BoyBorstal Boy is an autobiographical 1958 book by Brendan Behan. The story depicts a young, fervently idealistic Behan who loses his naïveté over the three years of his sentence to a juvenile borstal, softening his radical Republican stance and warming to his fellow British prisoners...
, was reproduced on the LP sleeve of Dexys Midnight RunnersDexys Midnight RunnersDexys Midnight Runners are a British pop group with soul influences, who achieved their major success in the early to mid 1980s. They are best known for their songs "Come On Eileen" and "Geno", both of which went No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart....
' debut album, Searching for the Young Soul RebelsSearching for the Young Soul RebelsSearching for the Young Soul Rebels is the first album by Dexys Midnight Runners, released in July 1980 .The album was ranked 98th in a 2005 survey held by British television's Channel 4 to determine the 100 greatest albums of all time...
. - In The Mighty Mighty BosstonesThe Mighty Mighty BosstonesThe Mighty Mighty Bosstones are an American ska punk band from Boston, Massachusetts, formed in 1983. Since the band's inception, lead vocalist Dicky Barrett, bassist Joe Gittleman, tenor saxophonist Tim "Johnny Vegas" Burton and dancer Ben Carr have remained constant members...
song "All Things Considered" where the main character claims "he was there the day Brendan Behan died". - Shortly after Behan's death a young student, Fred Geis, wrote the song "Lament for Brendan Behan" and passed it on to the Clancy Brothers, who sang it on their album Recorded Live in Ireland! the same year. This song, which calls "bold Brendan" Ireland's "sweet angry singer", was later covered by the Australian trio The Doug Anthony All StarsDoug Anthony All StarsThe Doug Anthony All Stars were an Australian musical comedy group who performed together between 1984 and 1994. The band was an acoustic trio comprising Paul McDermott and Tim Ferguson on main vocals and Richard Fidler on guitar and backing vocals...
, better known as a comedy band, on their album Blue. - Behan is mentioned as an alcoholic muse in the film "Divorcing Jack": "... as my artistic interests grew I found that many of my heros had had impassioned affairs with what my old dar would say was the devils vomit. Brendan Behan, Dylan Thomas, George Best, Pete Townsend... It had not adversely affected any of them, with the exception of the first two. 'em it killed."
- Brendan Behan is also mentioned in the Damien DempseyDamien DempseyDamien Dempsey is an Irish singer and songwriter who mixes traditional Irish folk with contemporary lyrics to deliver social comment on the positive and negative aspects arising from Ireland's Celtic Tiger society.-Early life:...
song Jar Song. - "Brendan" :Seamus Robinson's song-tribute to Brendan Behan.
- Behan's prisoner song (which was written by his brother Dominic) "The Auld TriangleThe Auld Triangle"The Auld Triangle" is a song written by Dominic Behan for his brother Brendan Behan and is featured in Brendan's play The Quare Fellow. It is used to introduce the play, a story about the occurrences in a prison the day a convict is set to be executed...
", from his play The Quare Fellow (this term being prison slang for a prisoner condemned to be hanged), has become something of a standard and has been recorded on numerous occasions, by folk musicians as well as popular bands like the Pogues and the Dropkick MurphysDropkick MurphysDropkick Murphys are an Irish-American punk rock band formed in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1996. The band was initially signed to independent punk record label Hellcat Records, releasing five albums for the label, and making a name for themselves locally through constant playing and yearly St....
. - Irish band A HouseA HouseA House was an Irish band from the 1980s to the 1990s, recognized for the clever, "often bitter or irony laden lyrics of [frontman] Dave Couse ... bolstered by the [band's] seemingly effortless musicality". The single "Endless Art" is one of their best known charting successes. A House were managed...
mention Behan in their song "Endless Art". - The Mountain GoatsThe Mountain GoatsThe Mountain Goats is an American indie rock band formed in Claremont, CA by singer-songwriter John Darnielle. For many years, the sole member of the Mountain Goats was Darnielle himself, despite the plural moniker....
song "Commandante" opens with the line "I'm gonna drink more whiskey than Brendan Behan". - A pub named for Behan is located in the historically Irish Jamaica Plain section of Boston, MABostonBoston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
- Behan's two poems from his work "The Hostage", "On the eighteenth day of November" and "The laughing boy" have been translated to Swedish and recorded by Ann Sofi Nilsson on the album "När kommer dagen".
- the same poems have been translated in 1966 to Greek and recorded by Maria FarantouriMaria FarantouriMaria Farantouri was born in Athens on 28 November 1947. She is a Greek singer and also a political and cultural activist. She has collaborated with prominent Greek composers such as Mikis Theodorakis, who wrote the score for Pablo Neruda's Canto General, which Farantouri performed...
on the album "Ένας όμηρος" ( the hostage) by Mikis TheodorakisMikis TheodorakisMikis Theodorakis is one of the most renowned Greek songwriters and composers. Internationally, he is probably best known for his songs and for his scores for the films Zorba the Greek , Z , and Serpico .Politically, he identified with the left until the late 1980s; in 1989, he ran as an...
. - There are two stories associated with him (both of which were in the A Series of QI, in the episode entitled, 'Advertising'.) One states that he was visiting CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and he was asked by a reporter "What brings you to Canada, Mr Behan?" To which Behan is supposed to have replied "Well now, I was in a bar in Dublin and it had one of those coasters, and it said "Drink Canada DryCanada DryCanada Dry is a brand of soft drinks owned since 2008 by the Texas-based Dr Pepper Snapple Group. For over a century Canada Dry has been known for its ginger ale, though the company also manufactures a number of other soft drinks and mixers...
," so I thought I'd give it a shot." The second story states that he would write a slogan for GuinnessGuinnessGuinness is a popular Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin. Guinness is directly descended from the porter style that originated in London in the early 18th century and is one of the most successful beer brands worldwide, brewed in almost...
if he were given a few crates of the product. The next day, the advertisers from Guinness returned to find the crates empty, surrounded by bits of crumpled paper, and he said "I've got it: 'Guinness makes you drunk.'" - Brendan Behan is mentioned in the Pete St John song about Dublin life made famous by The Dubliners, The Mero, "It's Brendan Behan out walking, Sure he's a ginger man".
- The Doug Anthony All StarsDoug Anthony All StarsThe Doug Anthony All Stars were an Australian musical comedy group who performed together between 1984 and 1994. The band was an acoustic trio comprising Paul McDermott and Tim Ferguson on main vocals and Richard Fidler on guitar and backing vocals...
performed The Auld Triangle on The Big Gig - According to J.P. Donleavy's "History of The Ginger Man," Donleavy claims that Behan was instrumental in bringing Donleavy in contact with M. Girodios of Olympia Press (Paris) in order to help Donleavy's famous first novel, "The Ginger Man" be published despite it's having been ostracized by the world literature community for its "filth" and "obscenity." Donleavy also alludes to the fact that Behan also lent assistance to Nabokov in getting "Lolita" published in a similar fashion.
- A bronze sculpture of the writer stands outside the Palace Bar on Dublin's Fleet Street.
Plays
- The Quare FellowThe Quare FellowThe Quare Fellow is Brendan Behan's first play, first produced in 1954.The title is taken from a Hiberno-English pronunciation of queer, meaning 'strange' or 'unusual'. In context, the word lacks the denotation of homosexuality which it holds today...
(1954) - An Giall (1958), The HostageThe Hostage (play)The Hostage is a loose 1958 English version, with songs, adapted in a much longer text from a one-act Irish language play An Giall, by its author, Brendan Behan.-Plot:...
(1958)- Behan wrote the play in Irish, and translated it to English
- Richard's Cork Leg (1972)
- Moving Out (one act play, commissioned for radio)
- A Garden Party (one act play, commissioned for radio)
- The Big House (1957, one act play, commissioned for radio)
Books
- Borstal BoyBorstal BoyBorstal Boy is an autobiographical 1958 book by Brendan Behan. The story depicts a young, fervently idealistic Behan who loses his naïveté over the three years of his sentence to a juvenile borstal, softening his radical Republican stance and warming to his fellow British prisoners...
(1958) - Brendan Behan's Island (1962)
- Hold Your Hour and Have Another (1963)
- Brendan Behan's New York (1964)
- Confessions of an Irish Rebel (1965)
- The Scarperer (1966)
- After The Wake: Twenty-One Prose Works Including Previously Unpublished Material (posthumous – 1981)
Songs
- Brendan Behan Sings Irish Folksongs and Ballads Spoken Arts Records SAC760 (1985)
- The Auld TriangleThe Auld Triangle"The Auld Triangle" is a song written by Dominic Behan for his brother Brendan Behan and is featured in Brendan's play The Quare Fellow. It is used to introduce the play, a story about the occurrences in a prison the day a convict is set to be executed...
appears on the 2006 Bert JanschBert JanschHerbert "Bert" Jansch was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s, as an acoustic guitarist, as well as a singer-songwriter...
album, The Black SwanThe Black Swan (Bert Jansch album)The Black Swan is the twenty-third album by Scottish folk singer Bert Jansch. It was released in 2006 through Drag City. Jansch described the album: "It's been fantastic working with everyone who's been involved on the record... - The Auld Triangle Performed live by The Bleeding Irish
- The Captain and the Kings
Biographies
- Brendan Behan - A Life by Michael O'Sullivan
- My Brother Brendan by Dominic BehanDominic BehanDominic Behan was an Irish songwriter, short story writer, novelist and playwright who wrote in both Irish and English. He was also a committed socialist and Irish Republican...
- Brendan Behan by Ulick O'ConnorUlick O'ConnorUlick O'Connor is an Irish writer, historian and critic.-Early life:Born in Rathgar, County Dublin in 1928, O'Connor attended St. Mary's College, Rathmines and later University College Dublin, where he studied law and philosophy, becoming known as a keen sporting participant, especially in boxing,...
- The Brothers Behan by Brian BehanBrian BehanBrian Behan was an Irish writer and trade unionist.Behan was born in Dublin, the son of Stephen Behan, younger brother of Brendan Behan and older brother of Dominic Behan...
- With Brendan Behan by Peter Arthurs
- The Crazy Life of Brendan Behan: The Rise and Fall of Dublin's Laughing Boy by Frank GrayFrank GrayFrancis Tierney 'Frank' Gray is a Scottish football manager and former footballer.Gray has previously managed Darlington, Farnborough Town, Grays Athletic and Woking....