Brendan Francis Behan (9 February 1923 – 20 March 1964) was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright who wrote in both Irish and English.
Painting of Brendan Behan (1923-1964) by Brian Whelan. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
| Brendan Francis Behan | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 9 1923 Dublin, Ireland |
| Died |
March 20, 1964 (41 years) Meath Hospital, Dublin, Ireland |
| Occupation | writer |
| Nationality |
 Irish |
| Period | 1942-1964 |
| Subjects | Irish Republican struggle, often autobiographical |
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Influences
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Influenced
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Life[]
Youth and education[]
Behan was born 9 February 1923 in Holles St. Hospital, Dublin, the eldest of 5 children of Frank Behan, a house painter then imprisoned as a republican, and Kathleen (Kearney), sister of Peadar Kearney (author of ‘The soldier's song’, which would become the Irish national anthem). (Kathleen had been married to Jack Furlong, a 1916 veteran who died of influenza in 1918, leaving his widow with 2 sons, Sean and Rory.)[1]
From childhood Brendan displayed an extraordinary talent for oral entertainment and a commensurate appetite for applause.[1]
In 1928 he attended St Vincent's School in North William St., and in 1934 changed to St Canice's CBS on the North Circular Road. In 1937 he was apprenticed to his father's trade and took a course in Bolton St. technical school. Though he was occasionally employed as a painter, his ambition was to be a writer.[1]
At the age of 8 he joined Na Fianna, the junior wing of the IRA, to which he graduated at the age of 16, despite the misgivings of those who considered him too flamboyant for covert operations. In November 1939, without the sanction of his superiors, he travelled to Liverpool, where he was quickly arrested and found in possession of explosive devices. He was held for some months in Walton gaol and then, because of his age, sentenced to 3 years' Borstal detention, most of which he spent in Hollesley Bay and most of which he enjoyed. (The governor, Cyril Alfred Joyce, was one of the earliest to recognise Behan's linguistic virtuosity and to be won over by his charm.)[1]
Behan was deported to Ireland in November 1941 but within 6 months he fired shots at policemen in Dublin in circumstances that combined terror and ineptitude and recalled his invasion of England. Fortunate not to be condemned to death, he was sentenced to 14 years' penal servitude, of which he served less than 5 – in Mountjoy gaol, Arbour Hill military detention barracks, and the Curragh camp – before being released in a general amnesty. During the remainder of his life he was to find himself in police cells on several occasions, mostly as a consequence of drunken disorder.[1]
Career[]
Behan, like many fellow prisoners, had written a good deal while confined, and after his release he tried, with limited success, to put his illegal activities behind him and establish himself as a writer. Convinced that the odds were stacked against a working-class writer in Dublin, he tried to settle in Paris, but eventually many of his friends there found his style of drinking unacceptable.[1]
He wrote some dozen poems in Irish, revealing at times a sensitive aspect of his personality that was difficult to detect in his other writings. In 1950 2 of his poems were included in Nuabhéarsaíocht, Seán Ó Tuama's anthology of contemporary Irish verse. He published 3 high-quality short stories, ‘A woman of no standing’ (Envoy, Dublin, 1950), ‘After the wake’ (Points, Paris, 1950), and ‘The confirmation suit’ (Standard, Dublin, 1953). In 1953, drawing on his extensive knowledge of criminal activity in Dublin and Paris, he wrote an engaging serial for the Irish Times which was later published as The scarperer (1964).[1]
He was managing to make a living as a journalist – on the radio and in newspapers – with evocations of the characters and colorful expressions of his inner-city childhood. He was also establishing himself as a character, a hard drinker who could enthral any gathering with a stream of songs, parodies, and grotesquely dramatized incidents from the lives of celebrities as disparate as Brian Boru, John Ruskin, Toulouse Lautrec, and Maud Gonne. These public performances were not without their price, for they used up the time and energy his more private self wished to devote to 2 literary projects: a novel about his time in Borstal and a play about a prison execution.[1]
In 1954, the year of his marriage to Beatrice Salkeld, daughter of artist Cecil Salkeldm his play The Quare Tellow was performed and well received at the tiny Pike Theatre in Dublin. 2 years later it was produced by the Theatre Workshop in London and was an outstanding success, due mostly to Joan Littlewood's direction but also to the contemporary campaign for the abolition of capital punishment. It was a success from which Behan was hardly ever to recover, especially when a drunken appearance on television, then a medium of high moral standards, delighted large sections of the British public and taught Behan the promotional value of alcoholic outrage.[1]
Behan's final effort to reject the ‘roaring boy’ persona and concentrate on writing was his willingness to provide a play in Irish for Gael Linn, the organisation that had generously encouraged him when he was unknown. An giall was well received in 1958, but the applause of the Damer Hall was as nothing compared to the international clamour that greeted Joan Littlewood's development of Behan's translation of the quietly realist An giall' into The Hostage, a medley of song, dance, topical satire, camp revue, and music-hall exchanges. With its contemptuous dismissal of all the norms of traditional morality and playwrighting, and its casual espousal of love and peace, The Hostage can now be seen as an overture to the 1960s. Perhaps for that very reason, it has not weathered very well; most modern productions return to some extent to the original.'[1]'
1958 was also the year in which Behan's masterpiece, Borstal Boy, was eventually published. It was to be his last completed written work. The later "books" were either derived from his earlier journalism or based on tape-recordings.[1]
Final years[]
Brendan Behan and Jackie Gleason, 1960. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
The tragedy of Behan's final years was all the more appalling for being so public. His failure to face up to the solitary discipline of writing filled him with guilt and self-disgust, which led in turn to heavier drinking in order to obliterate his demons, although, as a diabetic, he knew that such drinking was suicidal. He disdained medical advice and was frequently hospitalized, almost always signing himself out and returning to the pubs where once he had been applauded but was now avoided as tediously truculent and repetitious.[1]
Despite international success, he lacked confidence in himself and in his writing. He was fearful that exposure of his sexual interest in men would destroy his image as working-class tough guy. He was also troubled by his loss of faith in the extreme nationalism of his earlier years. Despairing of any resolution he longed for death and yet, as ‘a daylight atheist’, dreaded what might follow.[1]
He died in the Meath Hospital in Dublin on 20 March 1964. His funeral to Glasnevin cemetery, with full IRA honours, was one of the largest ever seen in the city.[1]
Writing[]
Behan had been working on some form of Borstal Boy since his time in Mountjoy gaol when Sean O'Faolain published ‘I become a Borstal boy’ (Bell, 1942); the slackening of control at the end of the novel suggests the difficulty with which Behan turned from the public stage to the private study in order to finish his imaginative reenactment of his Borstal experiences. Behan exploited his incomparable command of the oral style of Dublin city to produce a dramatic portrait of the artist as a prisoner of national prejudice, in the process creating some of the greatest comic scenes in modern literature.[1]
Recognition[]
In popular culture[]
- One of his books, Confessions of an Irish Rebel is burnt in the movie Fahrenheit 451.
- He was mentioned in the Preacher comics by Garth Ennis; the vampire Cassidy claimed to have known him in the '50s. Ennis also created a Behan analogue in Hellblazer.
- Behan's work has been a significant influence in the writings of Shane MacGowan, and he is the subject of "Streams Of Whiskey", a song by the Pogues.
- Behan is also mentioned in the Pogues song "Thousands Are Sailing" (written by Philip Chevron) with reference to the experience of Irish immigrants in New York.
- Chicago-based band The Tossers wrote the song Breandan O Beachain, found on their 2008 album On A Fine Spring Evening.
- The Mahones mention Behan in the song "Draggin' the Days"
- In the Thin Lizzy song "Black Rose", in the lyric "Ah sure, Brendan where have you Behan?"
- In Bob Geldof's song "Thinking Voyager 2 Type Things," the line "So rise up Brendan Behan like a drunken Lazarus."
- In Dexys Midnight Runners' 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 3rd verse of "The Internationale", from Borstal Boy, was reproduced on the LP sleeve of Dexys Midnight Runners' debut album, Searching for the Young Soul Rebels.
- In The Mighty Mighty Bosstones 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 Stars, 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 Dempsey 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 Triangle", 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 Murphys.
- Irish band A House mention Behan in their song "Endless Art".
- The Mountain Goats 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, MA
- Behan's 2 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 Farantouri on the album "Ένας όμηρος" ( the hostage) by Mikis Theodorakis.
- 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 Canada 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 Dry," so I thought I'd give it a shot." The second story states that he would write a slogan for Guinness 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 Stars 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 1st 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.
Publications[]
Poetry[]
- Poems, and a play in Irish. Dublin: Gallery Books, 1981.
- Poems and Stories (edited by Denis Cotter). Dublin : Liffey Press, 1978.
Plays[]
- The Quare Fellow: A comedy drama. London: Methuen, 1956; New York: Grove, 1956.
- The Hostage. London: Methuen, 1958; New York: Grove, 1958.
- "The Big House: A play for radio" in Evergreen Review 5:20 (1961), 40-63.
- The Quare Fellow and the Hostage: Two plays. New York: Grove, 1964.
- Richard's Cork Leg. London: Eyre Methuen, 1973; New York: Grove, 1964.
- Moving Out, and A garden party. Dixon, CA: Proscenium Press, 1967.
- The Complete Plays: The quare fellow; The hostage; Richard's cork leg; Moving out; A garden party; The big house. London: Eyre Methuen, 1978; New York: Grove, 1978.
- An Giall / The Hostage (bilingual edition; edited by Richard Wall). Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press / Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, UK: C. Smythe, 1987.
Novel[]
- The Scarperer. Garden City, NY, & London: Doubleday, 1964.
Short fiction=[]
- Poems and Stories (edited by Denis Cotter). Dublin : Liffey Press, 1978.
Non-fiction[]
- Borstal Boy (autobiography). London: Hutchinson, 1958; New York: Knopf, 1959.
- Brendan Behan's Island. New York: Bernard Geis, 1962; London: Hutchinson, 1962.
- Hold Your Hour and Have Another (columns). London: Hutchinson, 1963; Boston: Little, Brown, 1963.
- Brendan Behan's New York. New York: Bernard Geis, 1964; London: Hutchinson, 1964.
- Confessions of an Irish Rebel. New York: Bernard Geis, 1965; London: Hutchinson, 1965.
- The Wit of Brendan Behan (compiled by Sean McCann). London: Frewin, 1968.
- After The Wake: Twenty-one prose works including previously unpublished material. Dublin: O'Brien / London: Allison & Busby, 1981.
- Interviews and reflections (edited by E.H. Mikhail). London: Macmillan, 1982; Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble, 1982.
- The Sayings of Brendan Behan. London: Duckworth, 1992.
- The Dubbalin Man (columns). Dublin: A. Farmer, 1997.
Letters[]
- Letters (edited by E.H. Mikhail). Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992; London: Macmillan, 1992.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[2]
Plays[]
- The Quare Fellow (1954)
- An Giall (The Hostage) (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)
Audio / video[]
- Brendan Behan Sings Irish Folksongs and Ballads (cassette). New Rochelle, NY: Spoken Arts, 1974.[2]
- The Auld Triangle appears on the 2006 Bert Jansch album, The Black Swan
- The Auld Triangle Performed live by The Bleeding Irish
- The Captain and the Kings'
“LAUGHING BOY” BRENDAN BEHAN - THE HOSTAGE
See also[]
References[]
- With Brendan Behan by Peter Arthurs
- The Brothers Behan by Brian Behan
- My Brother Brendan by Dominic Behan
- The Crazy Life of Brendan Behan: The Rise and Fall of Dublin's Laughing Boy by Frank Gray
- Kearney, Colbert. "Behan, Brendan Francis," Dictionary of Irish Biography, October 2009. Web, Jul. 12, 2022.
- Brendan Behan by Ulick O'Connor
- Brendan Behan - A Life by Michael O'Sullivan
Notes[]
External links[]
- Poems
- Quotes
- Brendan Behan quotes at BrainyQuote
- Audio / video
- About
- Brendan Behan in the Encyclopædia Britannica
- Brendan Behan at Ireland's Eye
- Brendan Behan at Writers' Tears.
- Brendan Behan at IMDb
This article incorporates text from the Dictionary of Irish Biography, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International license. Original article is at: Behan, Brendan Francis
This article is licensed for noncommercial purposes under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License.
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