Citizendia
Your Ad Here

Brendan Francis Behan

Brendan Behan with Jackie Gleason
Born February 9, 1923(1923-02-09)
Dublin
Died March 20, 1964 (aged 41)
Meath Hospital, Dublin
Occupation Writer
Nationality Irish
Writing period 1942–1964
Genres Irish poet, novelist, playwright
Subjects Irish Republican struggle, often autobiographical
Influences

Brendan Francis Behan (Irish: Breandán Ó Beacháin) (February 9, 1923 - March 20, 1964) was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist and playwright who wrote in both Irish and English. Herbert Walton Gleason Jr, baptized John Herbert "Jackie" Gleason ( February 26, 1916 – June 24, 1987) was an Events 474 - Zeno crowned as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire. Year 1923 ( MCMXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Dublin (ˈdʌblɨn/ /ˈdʊblɨn or /ˈdʊbəlɪn/, bˠalʲə aːha klʲiəh or cliə(ɸ is both the largest city and capital of Ireland. Events 1600 - The Linköping Bloodbath takes place on Maundy Thursday in Linköping, Sweden. Year 1964 ( MCMLXIV) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the 1964 Gregorian calendar. Employment is a Contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. Nationality is a relationship between a Person and their State of Origin, Culture, association Affiliation and/or Loyalty Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɾlənd/ Éire) is the third largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world A literary genre is a category of literary composition Genres may be determined by Literary technique, tone, Content, or even (as in the case of fiction For a comparatively small island Ireland has made a disproportionate contribution to World literature in all its branches Irish republicanism (Poblachtánachas is an ideology based on the Irish nationalist belief that all of Ireland should be a single independent Republic An autobiography, from the Greek αὐτός autos "self" βίος bios "life" and γράφειν graphein "to write" James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 &ndash 13 January 1941 was an Irish expatriate writer widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the Irish (ga ''Gaeilge'' is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish. Events 474 - Zeno crowned as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire. Year 1923 ( MCMXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1600 - The Linköping Bloodbath takes place on Maundy Thursday in Linköping, Sweden. Year 1964 ( MCMLXIV) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the 1964 Gregorian calendar. For a comparatively small island Ireland has made a disproportionate contribution to World literature in all its branches Irish (ga ''Gaeilge'' is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish. He was also a committed Irish Republican and an erstwhile member of the Irish Republican Army. Irish republicanism (Poblachtánachas is an ideology based on the Irish nationalist belief that all of Ireland should be a single independent Republic This article deals with the Irish republican organisation opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty styling itself "Irish Republican Army" as it existed from the time of the Treaty

Behan was one of the most successful Irish dramatists of the 20th century. The history of Irish theatre begins with the Gaelic Irish tradition

Contents

Biography

Early life

Behan was born in the inner city of Dublin on February 9, 1923 into an educated working class family. Events 474 - Zeno crowned as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire. Year 1923 ( MCMXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. He lived in a house owned by his grandmother Christine English, who owned a number of properties in the area. His father Stephen Behan, a house painter who had been active in the Irish War of Independence, read classic literature to the children at bedtime from diverse sources such as Zola, Galsworthy and Maupassant; while his mother Kathleen took them on literary tours of the city. Stephen Behan was an Irish republican who was father of writers Brendan, Brian and Dominic Behan. The Irish War of Independence (or Tan War, or Anglo-Irish War, Irish: Cogadh na Saoirse) from January 1919 to July 1921 was a guerrilla If Brendan Behan's interest in literature came from his father, then his political beliefs were injected by his mother. She remained politically active all her life, and was a personal friend of the famed Irish republican Michael Collins. Michael John ("Mick" Collins (Mícheál Seán Ó Coileáin 16 October 1890 &ndash 22 August 1922 was an Irish revolutionary leader, Minister for Brendan Behan wrote a lament to Collins: "The Laughing Boy", at the age of thirteen. The title was derived from the affectionate name Mrs Behan gave Collins. She 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 A Soldier's Song. Peadar Kearney (Peadar Ó Cearnaígh 12 December, 1883 &ndash 23 November, 1942) was an Irish Republican and composer of numerous ga '''''Amhrán na bhFiann''''' ( is the National anthem of Ireland. His brother, Dominic Behan, was also a renowned songwriter most famous for the song The Patriot Game, while another sibling, Brian Behan, was a prominent radical political activist and public speaker, actor, author and playwright. Dominic Behan ( 22 October, 1928 - 3 August, 1989; Irish: Doiminic Ó Beacháin) was an Irish songwriter short Brian Behan ( November 10 1926 - November 2 2002) was an Irish Writer and Trade unionist. Brendan and Brian did not share the same views, especially when the question of politics or nationalism arose. Whether seriously or (perhaps more likely) in jest, Brendan on his deathbed asked Cahil 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!'.

Behan's 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. Ulick O'Connor (born 1928) is an Irish writer historian and critic 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!"

At the age of thirteen, Behan left school 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 Crumlin. Crumlin ( is a suburb of Dublin, Ireland, situated not far from the city centre on the Southside of the city between Walkinstown, Perrystown Here, 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. The name Fianna Éireann (ˈfʲiənə ˈeːɾʲən) also rendered as Fianna na hÉireann and Na Fianna Éireann ( Irish: " Soldiery of This article deals with the Irish republican organisation opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty styling itself "Irish Republican Army" as it existed from the time of the Treaty He was also the youngest contributor to be published in the Irish Press when a poem of his entitled: "Reply of Young Boy to Pro-English verses" was published in 1931.

At the age of sixteen (in 1939) Behan joined the IRA and embarked on an unauthorised solo mission to England to blow up Liverpool docks. There he was arrested in possession of explosives. He was sentenced to three years in a Borstal and did not return to Ireland until 1941. In the United Kingdom, a borstal was a specific kind of youth prison run by the Prison Service and intended to reform seriously Delinquent young people He wrote about these years in his autobiography Borstal Boy. Borstal Boy (1958 is an autobiographical novel by Irish nationalist Brendan Behan, recounting his imprisonment at Hollesley Bay for carrying In 1942, during the timeframe leading to the IRA's Northern Campaign, Behan was tried for the attempted murder of two detectives in Dublin while at a commemoration ceremony for Wolfe Tone — the father of Irish Republicanism. Northern Campaign 1942 - 1944 is a term used to describe attacks involving volunteers of the Irish Republican Army (IRA in World War II during the period September 1942 - December Theobald Wolfe Tone, commonly known as Wolfe Tone ( 20 June, 1763 – 19 November, 1798) was a leading figure in the United Sentenced to fourteen years in prison, he was incarcerated in Mountjoy Prison and the Curragh. Mountjoy Prison ( (founded as Mountjoy Gaol) nicknamed The Joy, is a closed medium security Prison located in Phibsboro in the centre of These experiences were relayed in "Confessions of an Irish Rebel. " Released under a general amnesty for Republicans in 1946, his "military" career was over by the age of twenty-three. Aside from a short prison sentence that he received in 1947 for his part in trying to break a fellow republican out from a Manchester jail, he effectively left the IRA, though he remained great friends with the future Chief-Of-Staff Cathal Goulding. Cathal Goulding ( 2 January 1923 - 26 December 1998) was Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army and the Official [1]

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. Some of this work was 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. ga '''Gaeltacht''' ( plural ga ''Gaeltachtaí'' is the Irish language word meaning an Irish-speaking region County Galway (Contae na Gaillimhe is located on the West Coast of Ireland. County Kerry ( Contae Chiarraí in Irish) is a southwestern county of Ireland. 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 a lot, 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 majority of his writing career he would rise at seven in the morning and work until 12 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. The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet news paper launched in the late 1850s. Additionally, he cultivated a reputation as carouser-in-chief and swayed shoulder-to-shoulder with other literati of the day: Flann O'Brien, Patrick Kavanagh, Anthony Cronin, J. P. Donleavy. Brian O'Nolan (Brian Ó Nualláin (5 October 1911 – 1 April 1966 was an Irish novelist and satirist best known for his novels An Béal Bocht, At Patrick Kavanagh (Pádraig Caomhánaigh (21 October 1904 &ndash 30 November 1967 was an Irish Poet. Anthony Cronin (born 1925 in County Wexford) is an Irish poet. James Patrick Donleavy (born April 23, 1926) is an Irish American Author, born in New York City to Irish immigrants For reasons unknown he had a major fall-out with Kavanagh, who reportedly would visibly shudder at the mere 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. The Quare Fellow is a play by Brendan Behan, first produced in 1954 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. The Theatre Royal Stratford East is a Theatre in Stratford in the London Borough of Newham. Joan Maud Littlewood ( 6 October, 1914 - 20 September, 2002) was a British theatrical director famous for her work in developing the left-wing Theatre Workshop is a Theatre group noted for their director Joan Littlewood. Subsequently it transferred to the West End. West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London 's "Theatreland" Behan generated immense publicity for The Quare Fellow as a result of a drunken appearance on the Malcolm Muggeridge TV show. Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge ( Croydon, England 24 March 1903 &ndash 14 November 1990) was a British Journalist The English, relatively unaccustomed to public drunkenness in authors, took him to their hearts . A fellow guest on the show, the American actor Jackie Gleason, reportedly said about the incident: "It wasn't an act of God but an act of Guinness!". Herbert Walton Gleason Jr, baptized John Herbert "Jackie" Gleason ( February 26, 1916 – June 24, 1987) was an 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 term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations 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".

In 1957, his Irish language play, An Giall (The Hostage) opened in the Damer Theatre, Dublin. The Hostage is a 1958 translation to English of the Gaelic play An Giall, by its author Brendan Behan. 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 of 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 inter alia 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. Borstal Boy (1958 is an autobiographical novel by Irish nationalist Brendan Behan, recounting his imprisonment at Hollesley Bay for carrying 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 horde words like misers, Behan sends them out on a spree, ribald, flushed and spoiling for a fight. Kenneth Peacock Tynan ( 2 April 1927 - 26 July 1980) was an influential and often controversial British Theatre Critic " He was now established as one of the leading Irish writers of his generation.

Decline and death

Behan found fame difficult to deal with. 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 notoriously drunken public appearances, on both stage and television. Brendan saw that it paid him to be drunk, as the public wanted the witty, iconoclastic, genial "broth of a boy" and he gave it to them in abundance. He staggered through the drunken hoops held out to him exclaiming: "There's no bad publicity except an obituary. " His health suffered terribly, with diabetic comas and seizures occurring with frightening regularity. 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 1961 and 1962 respectively, were talk books and cannot be compared to his former works — they were littered with pretentiousness and sycophancy, something which he wouldn't have tolerated earlier: "As Norman Mailer said to me. Norman Kingsley Mailer ( January 31, 1923 &ndash November 10, 2007) was an American Novelist, Journalist, . . . . . " Arthur Miller came up to me. Arthur Asher Miller (October 17 1915 &ndash February 10 2005 was an American Playwright and Essayist. . . " "One day with Groucho Marx. . . . " Both works were tape-recorded, a device which Brendan hated, preferring to write or type his words.

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 haul 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 Meath Hospital, where he died, aged 41, in the Meath Hospital in central Dublin. The Meath Hospital was founded in 1753 Situated in the 'liberty' of the Earl of Meath now Heytesbury Street the hospital was opened to serve the sick and poor in the crowded He was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery where he received a Republican funeral. Glasnevin Cemetery ( also known as Prospect Cemetery, is the main Catholic Cemetery in Dublin, the capital of Ireland. En route to the graveyard, thousands lined the streets.

Pop culture references

Works

Plays

Books

Songs

References

  1. ^ A tribute to The Lost People of Arlington House, The National Archives, London 2004

Biographies

External links

MusicBrainz is a project that aims to create an Open content Music database
© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic