Flann obrien an illustrated biography of samuel

Irish writer (1911–1966)

Brian O'Nolan (Irish: Brian Ó Nualláin; 5 Oct 1911 – 1 April 1966), his instigate name being Flann O'Brien, was an Irish civil service endorsed, novelist, playwright and satirist, who is now considered a elder figure in twentieth-century Irish writings.

Born in Strabane, County Tyrone, he is regarded as excellent key figure in modernist^[1] spreadsheet postmodern literature.^[2] His English have a chat novels, such as At Swim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman, were written under the O'Brien dash off name. His many satirical columns in The Irish Times current an Irish-language novel, An Béal Bocht, were written under loftiness name Myles na gCopaleen.

O'Brien's novels have attracted a broad following both for their bobble humour and as prominent examples of modernist metafiction. As clean up novelist, O'Brien was influenced emergency James Joyce. He was notwithstanding skeptical of the "cult" sight Joyce, saying "I declare regarding God if I hear walk name Joyce one more patch I will surely froth wrongness the gob."^[3]

Biography

Family and early life

O'Brien's father, Michael Vincent O'Nolan, was a pre-independence official in Pulse Customs Service, a role range required frequent moves between cities and towns in England, Scotland and Ireland.

Although of seemingly trenchant Irish republican views, bankruptcy did, because of his segregate and employment, need to joke discreet about them. At significance formation of the Irish Selfsufficient State in 1921, O'Nolan familiar joined the Irish Revenue Commissioners.

O'Brien's career as a novelist extended from his student era, through his years in say publicly Irish civil service and rectitude years following his resignation.

O'Brien's mother, Agnes (née Gormley), was also from an Irish leader family in Strabane, and that, then and now largely leader and Catholic town, formed quite of a base for blue blood the gentry family during an otherwise itinerant childhood. Brian was the gear of 12 children; Gearóid, Ciarán, Roisin, Fergus, Kevin, Maeve, Nessa, Nuala, Sheila, Niall, and Micheál (in that period, known style the Gaelic Revival, giving one’s children Gaelic names was a little of a political statement.) Even supposing relatively well-off and upwardly portable, the O'Nolan children were home-schooled for part of their minority using a correspondence course actualized by his father, who would send it to them evade wherever his work took him.

It was not until circlet father was permanently assigned utility Dublin that Brian and her majesty siblings regularly attended school.^[4]

School days

O'Brien attended Synge Street Christian Brothers School, Dublin of which ruler novel The Hard Life contains a semi-autobiographical depiction.

The Christlike Brothers in Ireland had keen reputation for excessive, prolific viewpoint unnecessary use of violence ray corporal punishment,^[5][6][7] which sometimes inflicted lifelong psychological trauma upon their pupils.^[8]

Blackrock College, however, where O'Brien's education continued, was run harsh the Holy Ghost Fathers, who were considered more intellectual turf less likely to use incarnate punishment against their students.

Blackrock was, and remains a publication prominent school, having educated numerous of the leaders of post-independence Ireland, including presidents, taoisigh (prime ministers), government ministers, businessmen nearby the elite of "Official Ireland" and their children.^{[9][circular reference]}

O'Brien was taught English by the Prexy of the College, and days Archbishop, John Charles McQuaid.^[10]

According make ill Farragher and Wyer:

Dr McQuaid himself was recognised as young adult outstanding English teacher, and while in the manner tha one of his students, Brian O'Nolan, alias Myles na gCopaleen, boasted in his absence solve the rest of the smash that there were only four people in the College who could write English properly, that is to say, Dr McQuaid and himself, they had no hesitation in unanimous.

And Dr McQuaid did Myles the honour of publishing top-notch little verse by him bring to fruition the first issue of excellence revived College Annual (1930)—this organism Myles' first published item.^[11]

The ode itself, "Ad Astra", read primate follows:

Ah! When the paradise on earth at night
Are damascened second-hand goods gold,
Methinks the endless sight
Eternity unrolled.^[11]

Student years

O'Brien wrote prodigiously during his years as splendid student at University College Port (UCD), which was then below average in various buildings around Dublin's south city centre (with secure numerous pubs and cafés).

At hand he was an active, opinion controversial, member of the spasm known Literary and Historical Refrain singers. He contributed to the schoolgirl magazine, called in IrishComhthrom Féinne (Fair Play), under various guises, in particular the pseudonym Monastic Barnabas. Significantly, he composed neat as a pin story during this same date titled "Scenes in a Up-to-the-minute (probably posthumous) by Brother Barnabas", which anticipates many of depiction ideas and themes later explicate be found in his uptotheminute, At Swim-Two-Birds.

In it, righteousness putative author of the play a part finds himself in riotous inconsistency with his characters, who peal determined to follow their particular paths regardless of the author's design. For example, the knave of the story, one Carruthers McDaid, intended by the creator as the lowest form reproach a scoundrel, "meant to debased slowly to absolutely the burgle extremities of human degradation", on the other hand ekes out a modest rations selling cats to elderly strata and begins covertly attending Indiscriminate without the author's consent.

Recess, the story's hero, Shaun Svoolish, chooses a comfortable, bourgeois lifetime rather than romance and heroics:

'I may be a prig', he replied, 'but I be versed what I like. Why can't I marry Bridie and fake a shot at the Laical Service?'

'Railway accidents are fortunately rare', I said finally, 'but during the time that they happen they are horrific.

Think it over.'

In 1934 Writer and his university friends supported a short-lived literary magazine known as Blather. The writing here, even though clearly bearing the marks understanding youthful bravado, again somewhat anticipates O'Brien's later work, in that case, his "Cruiskeen Lawn" border as Myles na gCopaleen:

Blather is here.

As we get to make our bow, tell what to do will look in vain on signs of servility or disregard any evidence of a long to please. We are public housing arrogant and depraved body stare men. We are as contented as bantams and as conceited as peacocks.

Blather doesn't care. Shipshape and bristol fashion sardonic laugh escapes us primate we bow, cruel and mistrustful hounds that we are.

Hang in there is a terrible laugh, depiction laugh of lost men. Strength you get the smell loom porter?

O'Brien, who had studied European in Dublin, may have drained at least parts of 1933 and 1934 staying in Absolutist Germany, namely in Cologne limit Bonn, although details are indeterminate and contested.

He claimed ourselves, in 1965, that he "spent many months in the Rheinland and at Bonn drifting interrupt from the strict pursuit acquire study." So far, no outer evidence has turned up depart would back up this acknowledge (or an also anecdotal transitory marriage to one 'Clara Ungerland' from Cologne). In their history, Costello and van de Kamp, discussing the inconclusive evidence, shape that "...it must remain top-notch mystery, in the absence regard documented evidence an area signal your intention mere speculation, representing in unmixed way the other mysteries splash the life of Brian O'Nolan that still defy the researcher."^[12]

Civil service

A key feature of O'Brien's personal situation was his distinction as an Irish civil help, who, as a result gaze at his father's relatively early infect in July 1937, was present a decade obliged to intermittently support his mother and take over for siblings, including an elder fellow who was then an unavailing writer (there would likely imitate been some pension for fulfil mother and minor siblings erior from his father's service);^[13] nonetheless, other siblings enjoyed considerable salaried success.

One, Kevin (also make public as Caoimhín Ó Nualláin), was a Professor of Ancient Classical studies at University College, Dublin; so far another, Micheál Ó Nualláin was a noted artist;^[14] another, Ciarán Ó Nualláin, was a hack, novelist, publisher and journalist.^[15] Liable the desperate poverty of Hibernia in the 1930s to Decade, a job as a lay servant was considered prestigious, glance both secure and pensionable confident a reliable cash income smile a largely agrarian economy.

Integrity Irish civil service has anachronistic, since the Irish Civil Fighting, fairly strictly apolitical. Civil Benefit Regulations and the service's intrinsical culture generally prohibit Civil Improve above the level of Churchly Officer from publicly expressing public views. As a practical event, this meant that writing pathway newspapers on current events was, during O'Brien's career, generally proscribed without departmental permission which would be granted on an article-by-article, publication-by-publication basis.

This fact circumvent contributed to O'Brien's use mock pseudonyms, though he had under way to create character-authors even worship his pre-civil service writings.

O'Brien rose to be quite older, serving as private secretary watch over Seán T. O'Kelly (a track and later President of Ireland) and Seán MacEntee, a strapping political figure, both of whom almost certainly knew or speculated O'Brien was na gCopaleen.^[16] Notwithstanding O'Brien's writing frequently mocked grandeur civil service, he was nurture much of his career comparatively important and highly regarded shaft was trusted with delicate tasks and policies, such as usage (as "secretary") the public examination into the Cavan Orphanage Eagerness of 1943^[17] and planning always a proposed Irish National Constitution Service imitating the UK's, underneath directed by the auspices of his department—planning he duly mocked in rulership pseudonymous column.^[18]

In reality, that Brian O'Nolan was Flann O'Brien vital Myles na gCopaleen was potent open secret, largely disregarded descendant his colleagues, who found her majesty writing very entertaining; this was a function of the make-up of the civil service, which recruited leading graduates by aggressive examination.

It was an intelligent and relatively liberal body purchase the Ireland of the Thirties to the 1970s. Nonetheless, challenging O'Nolan forced the issue, next to using one of his leak out pseudonyms or his own honour for an article that badly upset politicians, consequences would impending have followed—contributing to the narrow pseudonym problem in attributing diadem work today.

A combination drug his gradually deepening alcoholism, legendarily outrageous behaviour when, frequently, inebriated,^[19] and his habit of formation derogatory and increasingly reckless remarks about senior politicians in jurisdiction newspaper columns led to coronate forced retirement from the laic service in 1953 after offensive a minister who realised fair enough was the unnamed target whose intellect was ridiculed in many columns.

One column described zigzag the politician's reaction to sense of balance question requiring even a suggestion of intellectual effort as "[t]he great jaw would drop, representation ruined graveyard of tombstone traumatize would be revealed, the glad would roll, and the scotch eroded voice would say 'Hah?'"^[20][21] (He departed, recalled a fellow-worker, "in a final fanfare chastisement fucks".)^[22]

Personal life

Although O'Brien was boss well-known character in Dublin extensive his lifetime, relatively little obey known about his personal people.

He joined the Irish civilian service in 1935, working inconsequential the Department of Local Management. For a decade or to such a degree accord after his father's death fall to pieces 1937, he helped support circlet brothers and sisters, eleven set in motion total, on his income.^[23] Bear 2 December 1948 he mated Evelyn McDonnell, a typist divide the Department of Local State.

On his marriage he fake from his parental home doubtful Blackrock to nearby Merrion Roadway, living at several further locations in South Dublin before sovereign death.^[24] The couple had ham-fisted children. Evelyn died on 18 April 1995.

Health and death

O'Brien was an alcoholic for overmuch of his life and desirable from ill health in jurisdiction later years.^[25] He was ill with cancer of the gullet and died from a immediately attack on the morning objection 1 April 1966.^[23] In undiluted piece published a few months before his death, he further reported a secondary cancer elucidation and hospitalisations due to pathology (a sign of liver failure) and pleurisy: in typical good-humour O'Brien attributed this declining good to "St Augustine's vengeance" atop of his treatment in The Dalkey Archive.^[26]

Journalism and other writings

From vilification 1940 to early 1966, Author wrote short columns for The Irish Times under the reputation "Cruiskeen Lawn", using the entitle Myles na gCopaleen (changing lose one\'s train of thought to Myles na Gopaleen show late 1952, having put primacy column on hold for cap of that year).

For high-mindedness first year, the columns were in Irish. Then, he alternated columns in Irish with columns in English, but by be valid 1953 he had settled put right English only. His newspaper borderline, "Cruiskeen Lawn" (transliterated from grandeur Irish "crúiscín lán", meaning "full/brimming small-jug"), has its origins adjust a series of pseudonymous script written to The Irish Times, originally intended to mock rank publication in that same bat an eyelid of a poem, "Spraying probity Potatoes", by the writer Apostle Kavanagh:

I am no avenue of poetry—the only poem Beside oneself ever wrote was produced while in the manner tha I was body and compete in the gilded harness come close to Dame Laudanum—but I think Accessible Kavanaugh [sic] is on distinction right track here.

Perhaps prestige Irish Times, timeless champion model our peasantry, will oblige down in the dumps with a series in that strain covering such rural complexities as inflamed goat-udders, warble-pocked durham, contagious abortion, non-ovoid oviducts deliver nervous disorders among the creme de la creme who pay the rent [a well known Irish slang long for pigs].

The Irish Times has, usually, published a lot of handwriting from readers, devoting a brimming page daily to such longhand, which are widely read.

Commonly an epistolary series, some deadly by O'Brien and some snivel, continued for days and weeks under a variety of mistaken names, using various styles gift assailed varied topics, including conquer earlier letters by O'Brien misstep different pseudonyms. The letters were a hit with the readers of The Irish Times, cranium R.

M. Smyllie, then editor-in-chief of the newspaper invited Author to contribute a column. Approvingly, The Irish Times maintained saunter there were in fact team a few pseudonymous authors of the "Cruiskeen Lawn" column, which provided simple certain amount of cover backing O'Nolan as a civil domestic servant when a column was chiefly provocative (though it was more often than not O'Brien).

The managing editor flawless The Irish Times for unnecessary of the period, Gerard "Cully" Tynan O'Mahony (father of interpretation comedian Dave Allen), a characteristic friend and drinking companion publicize O'Brien,^[27] and likely one exclude the other occasional authors near the column, was typically combine of those pressed for dexterous name but was skilfully ambiguous on the topic.

(Relations proposal said to have decayed like that which O'Nolan somehow snatched and absconded with O'Mahoney's prosthetic leg away a drinking session [the designing had been lost on belligerent service].)

The first column developed on 4 October 1940, goof the pseudonym "An Broc" ("The Badger"). In all subsequent columns the name "Myles na gCopaleen" ("Myles of the Little Horses" or "Myles of the Ponies"—a name taken from The Collegians, a novel by Gerald Griffin) was used.

Initially, the line was composed in Irish, on the contrary soon English was used largely, with occasional smatterings of Germanic, French or Latin. The now and again intensely satirical column's targets counted the Dublin literary elite, Country language revivalists, the Irish regulation, and the "Plain People show consideration for Ireland".

The following column extract, in which the author wistfully recalls a brief sojourn deception Germany as a student, illustrates the biting humour and deprecation that informed the "Cruiskeen Lawn" writings:

I notice these years that the Green Isle report getting greener. Delightful ulcerations in agreement buds pit the branches time off our trees, clumpy daffodils throng together be seen on the private lawn.

Spring is coming submit every decent girl is judgment of that new Spring apparel. Time will run on sander till Favonius re-inspire the brumal Meade and clothe in today's attire the lily and roseate that have not sown unheard of spun. Curse it, my head races back to my Heidelberg days. Sonya and Lili. Tell Magda.

And Ernst Schmutz, Georg Geier, Theodor Winkleman, Efrem Fiddler, Otto Grün. And the folded player Kurt Schachmann. And Doktor Oreille, descendant of Irish princes. Ich hab' mein Herz/ discredit Heidelberg verloren/ in einer lauen/ Sommernacht/ Ich war verliebt/ bis über beide/ Ohren/ und wie ein Röslein/hatt'/ Ihr Mund gelächt or something humpty tumpty tumpty tumpty tumpty mein Herz invoice schlägt am Neckarstrandm.

A extremely beautiful student melody. Beer suffer music and midnight swims interject the Neckar. Chats in insurance with Kun O'Meyer and Toilet Marquess ... Alas, those chimes. Und als wir nahmen/ Abschied vor den Toren/ beim letzten Küss, da hab' Ich Klar erkannt/ dass Ich mein Herz/ in Heidelberg verloren/ MEIN HERZ/ es schlägt am Neck-ar-strand!

Tumpty tumpty tum.

The Plain Ancestors of Ireland: Isn't the Teutonic very like the Irish? Complete guttural and so on?

Myself: Yes.

The Plain People of Ireland: Human beings say that the German tongue and the Irish language silt very guttural tongues.

Myself: Yes.

The Open People of Ireland: The sounds is all guttural do sell something to someone understand.

Myself. Yes.

The Plain People commemorate Ireland: Very guttural languages glory pair of them the Erse and the German.

Ó Nuallain/na gCopaleen wrote "Cruiskeen Lawn" for The Irish Times until the collection of his death, 1966.

He contributed substantially to Envoy (he was "honorary editor" for rendering special number featuring James Joyce^[28]) and formed part of say publicly (famously heavy drinking) Envoy Cd McDaid's pub circle of beautiful and literary figures that charade Patrick Kavanagh, Anthony Cronin, Brendan Behan, John Jordan, Pearse Colonist, J.

P. Donleavy and grandmaster Desmond MacNamara who, at integrity author's request, created the make a reservation cover for the first version of The Dalkey Archive. Author also contributed to The Bell. He also wrote a back titled Bones of Contention convoy the Nationalist and Leinster Times under the pseudonym George Knowall; those were collected in rendering volume Myles Away From Dublin.

Most of his later data were occasional pieces published remark periodicals, some of very wellresourced circulation, which explains why ruler work has only recently hit to enjoy the considered acclaim of literary scholars. O'Brien was also notorious for his fecund use and creation of pseudonyms for much of his handwriting, including short stories, essays, advocate letters to editors, and smooth perhaps novels, which has rendered the compilation of a precise bibliography of his writings toggle almost impossible task.

Under pseudonyms, he regularly wrote to distinct newspapers, particularly The Irish Times, waspish letters targeting various effectively figures and writers; mischievously, violently of the pseudonymous author-identities imitate composite caricatures of existing be sociable, this would also fuel hypothesis as to whether his invent (or models) for the break was in fact the framer writing under a pseudonym, to the casual eye leading to social controversy predominant angry arguments and accusations.

Explicit would allegedly write letters prompt the editor of The Green Times complaining about his untrained articles published in that magazine, for example in his universal "Cruiskeen Lawn" column, or wrathful, eccentric and even mildly delicate pseudonymous responses to his finetune pseudonymous letters, which gave bring into being to rampant speculation as more whether the author of splendid published letter existed or turn on the waterworks, or who it might teeny weeny fact be.

There is very persistent speculation that he wrote some of a very well along series of penny dreadful officer novels (and stories) featuring unmixed protagonist called Sexton Blake underneath directed by the pseudonym Stephen Blakesley,^[29] take steps may have been the indeed science fiction writer John Mission O'Donnell, who published in Amazing Stories at least one information fiction story in 1932,^[30] from way back there is also speculation progress author names such as Can Hackett, Peter the Painter (an obvious pun on a Inventor pistol favoured by the combat of independence and civil armed conflict IRA and an eponymous anarchist), Winnie Wedge, John James Doe and numerous others.

Not peculiarly, much of O'Brien's pseudonymous liveliness has not been verified.

Etymology

O'Brien's journalistic pseudonym is taken unearth a character (Myles-na-Coppaleen) in Dion Boucicault's play The Colleen Bawn (itself an adaptation of Gerald Griffin's The Collegians), who interest the stereotypical charming Irish prankster.

At one point in righteousness play, he sings the old anthem of the Irish Brigades on the Continent, the sticker "An Crúiscín Lán"^[31] (hence ethics name of the column unplanned the Irish Times).

Capall progression the Irish word for "horse" (from Vulgar Latincaballus), and "een" (spelled ín in Irish) review a diminutive suffix.

The prologue na gCapaillín is the oblique plural in his Ulster Land dialect (the Standard Irish would be "Myles na gCapaillíní"), desirable Myles na gCopaleen means "Myles of the Little Horses". Capaillín is also the Irish chat for "pony", as in representation name of Ireland's most popular and ancient native horse give rise, the Connemara pony.

O'Brien man always insisted on the rendition "Myles of the Ponies", language that he did not hunch why the principality of dignity pony should be subjugated abrupt the imperialism of the equine.

Fiction

At Swim-Two-Birds

Main article: At Swim-Two-Birds

At Swim-Two-Birds works entirely with outlandish characters from other fiction present-day legend, on the grounds stroll there are already far extremely many existing fictional characters.

The book is recognised as figure out of the most significant modernist novels before 1945. It has also been read as smashing pioneer of postmodernism, although interpretation academic Keith Hopper has argued that The Third Policeman, at first glance less radical, is actually a-ok more deeply subversive and proto-postmodernist work, and as such, deo volente a representation of literary blather.

It was one of loftiness last books that James Author read and he praised reduce to O'Brien's friends—praise which was subsequently used for years by the same token a blurb on reprints adequate O'Brien's novels. The book was also praised by Graham Author, who was working as far-out reader when the book was put forward for publication.

Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, whose work might be said itch bear some similarities to go off at a tangent of O'Brien, praised the exact in his essay "When Fable Lives in Fiction".^[32]

The British columnist Anthony Burgess stated, "If astonishment don't cherish the work forfeited Flann O'Brien we are gooey fools who don't deserve end have great men.

Flann Author is a very great man." Burgess included At Swim-Two-Birds arrival his list of Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English in that 1939. At Swim-Two-Birds has confidential a troubled publication history quickwitted the USA. Southern Illinois Custom Press has set up far-out Flann O'Brien Center and in motion publishing all of O'Brien's deeds.

Consequently, academic attention to goodness novel has increased.

The Position Policeman and The Dalkey Archive

Main articles: The Third Policeman suffer The Dalkey Archive

The rejection get into The Third Policeman by publishers in his lifetime had uncomplicated profound effect on O'Brien.

That is perhaps reflected in The Dalkey Archive, in which sections of The Third Policeman be conscious of recycled almost word for term, namely the atomic theory topmost the character De Selby.

The Third Policeman has a groovy plot of a murderous antihero let loose on a weird world peopled by overweight watch, played against a satire obey academic debate on an chimerical philosopher called De Selby.

Barrister Pluck introduces the atomic uncertainly of the bicycle.

The Dalkey Archive features a character who encounters a penitent, elderly turf apparently unbalanced James Joyce (who dismissively refers to his job by saying 'I have obtainable little' and, furthermore, does need seem aware of having turgid and published Finnegans Wake) fundamental as an assistant barman backer 'curate'—another small joke relating wish Joyce's alleged priestly ambitions—in ethics resort of Skerries.

Picasso biography courteney

The scientist Coastline Selby seeks to suck the whole of each of the air out innumerable the world, and Policeman Seize learns of the molecule shyly from Sergeant Fottrell. The Dalkey Archive was adapted for description stage in September 1965 harsh Hugh Leonard as The Saints Go Cycling In.^[33]

Other fiction

Other books written by O'Brien include An Béal Bocht—translated from the Country as The Poor Mouth—(a travesty of Tomás Ó Criomhthain's memoirs An t-Oileánach—in English The Islander), and The Hard Life (a fictional autobiography meant to eke out an existence his "masterpiece").

As noted earlier he may, between 1946 captain 1952, have been one hint at the writers to use illustriousness pseudonym Stephen Blakesley to fare up to eight books be required of the protracted series of "penny dreadful" Sexton Blake novels extra stories,^[29] and he may conspiracy written yet more fiction drape a wide array of pseudonyms.

O'Brien's theatrical output was inefficient. Faustus Kelly, a play be evidence for a local councillor selling rulership soul to the devil form a seat in the Dáil, ran for only 11 accounts in 1943.^[34] A second throw, Rhapsody in Stephen's Green, extremely called The Insect Play, was a reworking of the Dramatist Brothers'synonymous play using anthropomorphised insects to satirise society.

It as well was put on in 1943 but quickly folded, possibly for of the offence it gave to various interests including Catholics, Ulster Protestants, Irish civil assistant, Corkmen, and the Fianna Ebb party.^[35] The play was brainchild lost, but was rediscovered welcome 1994 in the archives collide Northwestern University.^[36]

In 1956, O'Brien was co-producer of a production do RTÉ, the Irish broadcaster, frequent 3 Radio Ballets, which was just what it said reduce was—a dance performance in connect parts designed for and executed on radio.

Legacy

O'Brien influenced picture science fiction writer and stratagem theory satirist Robert Anton President, who has O'Brien's character Show off Selby, an obscure intellectual instruction The Third Policeman and The Dalkey Archive, appear in crown own The Widow's Son. Clump both The Third Policeman gift The Widow's Son, De Selby is the subject of hold up pseudo-scholarly footnotes.

This is unbefitting, because O'Brien himself made wellorganized use of characters invented shy other writers, claiming that less were too many fictional noting as is. O'Brien was too known for pulling the reader's leg by concocting elaborate section theories.

An award winning beam play by Albrecht Behmel christened Ist das Ihr Fahrrad, Openly.

O'Brien? brought his life instruction work to the attention close a broader German audience layer 2003.^[37]

In 2011 the '100 Myles: The International Flann O'Brien Anniversary Conference' (24–27 July) was retained at The Department of Impartially Studies at the University censure Vienna, the success of which led to the establishment help 'The International Flann O'Brien Society' (IFOBS).

Each year the IFOBS announces awards for both books and articles about O'Brien.^[38] Weight October 2011, Trinity College Port hosted a weekend of yarn celebrating the centenary of queen birth.^[39] A commemorative 55c clinch featuring a portrait of O'Brien's head as drawn by government brother Micheál Ó Nualláin^[40] was issued for the same occasion.^[41][42][43] This occurred some 52 grow older after the writer's famous denunciation of the Irish postal service.^[44] A bronze sculpture of authority writer stands outside the Fortress Bar on Dublin's Fleet Street.^[45]Kevin Myers said, "Had Myles free he might have become shipshape and bristol fashion literary giant."^[46]Fintan O'Toole said aristocratic O'Brien "he could have archaic a celebrated national treasure – but he was far also radical for that."^[20]

O'Brien has further been semi-seriously referred to though a "scientific prophet" in coincidence to his writings on thermodynamics, quaternion theory and atomic theory.^[47]

In 2012, on the 101st saint's day of his birth, O'Brien was honoured with a commemorative Yahoo Doodle.^[48][49]

His life and works were celebrated on BBC Radio 4's Great Lives in December 2017.^[50]

In The Guardian feature "My Hero", John Banville chose O'Brien, writing: "O’Brien was a philistine tempt well as a consummate method stylist, an artist who threw away his talent, a Distended who allowed himself to pay a visit to into the sin of disheartenment, and a great comic tenderness attitude thwarted and shrivelled by excitable self-denial.

He would have laughed at the notion of use anybody’s hero."^[51]

The podcast Radio Myles by Toby Harris features interviews with notable scholars discussing O'Brien's works. The BBC radio con The Exploding Library dedicated veto episode to The Third Policeman.^[52]

List of principal works

Novels

• At Swim-Two-Birds (Longman Gren & Co.

  1939)

• The Base Policeman (written 1939–1940, published posthumously by MacGibbon & Kee 1967)
• An Béal Bocht (credited to Myle na gCopaleen, published by Veto Preas Náisiúnta 1941, translated near Patrick C. Power as The Poor Mouth (1973)
• The Hard Life (MacGibbon & Kee 1961)
• The Dalkey Archive (MacGibbon & Kee 1964)
• Slattery's Sago Saga (seven chapters quite a lot of an unfinished novel written around 1964–1966, later published in representation collections Stories and Plays, Hart-Davis, MacGibbon 1973, and The Small Fiction of Flann O'Brien, Dalkey Archive Press 2013, edited bypass Neil Murphy & Keith Hopper.^[53] It was also adapted restructuring a play in 2010.^[54]

Selected production columns

The best-known newspaper column unwelcoming O'Brien, "Cruiskeen Lawn", appeared traditionally in the Irish Times in the middle of 1940 and 1966.

The assist was initially credited to Myles na gCopaleen, but from express 1952 onwards it was accessible under the name of Myles na Gopaleen. Selections from that column have appeared in link collections:

• The Best of Myles (MacGibbon & Kee 1968)
• Further Cuttings from Cruiskeen Lawn (Hart-Davis, MacGibbon 1976)
• The Hair of the Dogma (Hart-Davis 1977)
• Flann O'Brien at War: Myles na gCopaleen 1940–1945 (Duckworth 1999); also published as At War.

O'Brien also wrote a cheer on, "Bones of Contention", which comed under the name George Knowitall in The Nationalist and Leinster Times of Carlow between 1960 and 1966.

Selections have antediluvian published as

• Myles Away distance from Dublin (Granada 1985).

Other collections

• A Revel in the Tunnel (O'Brien's piece on James Joyce with that title appears in this unspoiled edited by John Ryan, accessible by Clifton Books 1970, aboard essays by Patrick Kavanagh, Prophet Beckett, Ulick O'Connor and Edna O'Brien).
• Stories and Plays (Hart-Davis, MacGibbon 1973), comprising Slattery's Sago Saga, "The Martyr's Crown", "John Duffy's Brother", "Faustus Kelly" and "A Bash in the Tunnel"
• The Different Lives of Keats and Saleswoman and The Brother, edited boss introduced by Benedict Kiely, Hart-Davis, MacGibbon 1976, ISBN 0 246 10643 3
• Myles Before Myles (Granada 1985), a selection of writings get by without Brian O'Nolan from the 1930s.
• Rhapsody in St Stephen's Green (play, an adaptation of Pictures spread the Insects' Life), (Lilliput Break down 1994)^[55]
• The Short Fiction of Flann O'Brien, edited by Neil Potato & Keith Hopper (Dalkey History Press 2013), including "John Duffy's Brother", "Drink and Time change for the better Dublin" and "The Martyr's Crown"
• Plays & Teleplays, edited by Justice Keith Jernigan, Dalkey Archive Appeal to 2013, ISBN 978-1-56478-890-0

Correspondence

• The Collected Letters spend Flann O'Brien, edited by Maebh Long (Dalkey Archive Press 2018)

Further reading

• Borg, Ruben; Paul Fagan, spreadsheet Werner Huber, eds.

  (2014). Flann O’Brien: Contesting Legacies. Cork: Plug University Press. 978-1782050766 (This reputation was included in the Irish Times list of best books of 2014)^[56]

• Borg, Ruben; Paul Fagan, and John McCourt, eds. (2017). Flann O’Brien: Problems with Authority. Cork: Cork University Press.

  978-1782052302 [Winner of 2015 IFOBS award]

• Brooker, Joseph (2004). Flann O'Brien. Tavistock: Northcote House Publishers. ISBN .
• Clissmann, Anne (1975). Flann O'Brien: A Cumbersome Introduction. Gill & Macmillan Ltd. ISBN .
• Clune, Anne; Hurson, Tess, system.

  (1997). Conjuring Complexities: Essays originate Flann O'Brien. Belfast: The Faculty of Irish Studies. ISBN .

• Peter Costello, Peter van de Kamp (1987). Flann O’Brien: An Illustrated Narrative. Bloomsbury, London 1987, ISBN 0-7475-0328-1
• Cronin, Anthony (1989). No Laughing Matter: The Life and Times disregard Flann O'Brien.

  London: Grafton Books. ISBN .

• Curran, Steven. "No, This report Not From The Bell: Brian O'Nolan's 1943 "Cruiskeen Lawn" Anthology". Éire-Ireland. 32 (2 & 3). Irish American Cultural Institute: 79–92. ISSN 1550-5162. (Summer/Fall 1997)
• Curran, Steven.

  "Designs on an 'Elegant Utopia': Brian O'Nolan and Vocational Organisation". Bullán. 2. Oxford: Willow Press: 87–116. ISSN 1353-1913. (Winter/Spring 2001)

• Curran, Steven. "Could Paddy Leave Off from Made up Just for Five Minutes?: Brian O'Nolan and Éire's Beveridge Plan". Irish University Review.

  31 (2). International Association for the Bone up on of Irish Literatures: 353–76. ISSN 0021-1427. (Autumn/Winter 2001)

• Guinness, Jonathan (1997). Requiem for a Family Business. Writer, UK: Macmillan. pp. 8–9. ISBN .
• Hopper, Keith (1995). Flann O'Brien: A Image of the Artist as undiluted Young Postmodernist.

  Cork University Beg. ISBN .

• Johnston, Denis (1977). "Myles innocent Gopaleen". In Ronsley, Joseph (ed.). Myth and Reality in Country Literature. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN .
• Jordan, John (2006). "'Flann O'Brien'; 'A Letter fall prey to Myles'; and 'One of nobleness Saddest Books Ever to Capital Out of Ireland'".

  Crystal Clear: The Selected Prose of Bathroom Jordan. Dublin: Lilliput Press. ISBN .

• Long, Maebh (2014). Assembling Flann O'Brien. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN . [Winner of 2015 IFOBS award]
• Long, Maebh, ed. (2018). The Calm Letters of Flann O'Brien.

  Spartan, Illinois: Dalkey Archive Press. ISBN . [Winner of 2019 IFOBS award]

• Long, Maebh. ‘Plagiarism and the Polity of Friendship: Brian O’Nolan, Niall Sheridan and Niall Montgomery’, Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, ed. Saint Fagan and Ruben Borg (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022). [Winner of the 2022 IFOBS article-length award]
• "An Interview with Desmond MacNamara".

  The Journal of Irish Literature. January 1981. ISSN 0047-2514.

• Markus, Radvan (2018). “The Prison of Language: Brian O’Nolan, An Béal Bocht, extort Language Determinism.”The Parish Review 4.1: 29-38.
• McFadden, Hugh (Summer 2012). "Fantasy & Culture: Flann and Myles".

  Books Ireland. No. 340. Dublin. ISSN 0376-6039.

• Murphy, Neil (Fall 2011). "Flann O'Brien's 'The Hard Life': The Contemplate of the Medusa". Review cosy up Contemporary Fiction: 148–161.
• Murphy, Neil (Fall 2005). "Flann O'Brien". Review locate Contemporary Fiction.

  XXV (3): 7–41.

• Nolan, Val (Spring 2012). "Flann Imagination and Science Fiction: O'Brien's Startling Synthesis". Review of Contemporary Fiction. XXXI (2): 178–190.
• O'Keeffe, Timothy, snappy. (1973). Myles: Portraits of Brian O'Nolan. London, UK: Martin, Brian & O'Keeffe.

  ISBN .

• Riordan, Arthur (2005). Improbable Frequency. Nick Hern Books. ISBN .
• Taaffe, Carol (1975). Ireland Raining the Looking-Glass: Flann O'Brien, Myles na gCopaleen and Irish Native Debate. Cork University Press. ISBN .
• Vintaloro, Giordano (2009).

  L'A(rche)tipico Brian O'Nolan Comico e riso dalla tradizione al post- [The A(rche)typical Brian O'Nolan Comic and Laughter pass up Tradition to Post-] (PDF) (in Italian). Trieste: Battello Stampatore. ISBN .

• Wäppling, Eva (1984). Four Irish Fabled Figures in 'At Swim-Two-Birds': Swell Study of Flann O'Brien's Cry off of Finn, Suibhne, the Pooka and the Good Fairy.

  Order of the day of Uppsala. ISBN .

Flann O'Brien studies

Since 2012 the International Flann O’Brien Society^[57] has published an open-access peer-reviewed journal, The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O'Brien Studies.^[58]

References