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The Quare Fellow
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
87 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1956
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About the author
Brendan Behan
74 books155 followersEarly association with the Irish republican army and experiences in prison influenced works, including
The Quare Fellow
, the play of 1954, and the autobiographical
Borstal Boy
in 1958 of Brendan Francis Behan, writer.
Brendan Francis Behan composed poetry, short stories, and novels in English. He also volunteered.
A mother in the inner city of Dublin bore Brendan Francis Behan into an educated class family. Christine English, his grandmother, owned a number of properties in the area and the house on Russell street near Mountjoy square. Peadar Kearney, his uncle and author of song and the national anthem, also lived in the area. Stephen Behan, his father, acted in the war of independence, painted houses, and read classic literature to the children at bedtime from such sources as Émile Zola, John Galsworthy, and Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant; Kathleen Behan, his mother, took them on literary tours of the city. From father, interest of Behan in literature came; his mother originated his political ideas. She politically acted in all her life and personally befriended Michael Collins. Brendan Behan lamented "The Laughing Boy" at the age of thirteen to Collins. His mother gave the affectionate nickname, the title, to Collins. Kathleen published "Mother of all the Behans," a collaboration with Brian Behan, another son, in 1984.
Peadar Kearney, uncle of Brendan Francis Behan, composed Amhrán na bhFiann , the national anthem. People best knew "The Patriot Game," the song of Dominic Behan, his also renowned brother; Brian Behan, another sibling, a prominent radical political activist, spoke in public, acted, and authored. Brendan and Brian shared not 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, to "have that bastard Brian shot—we've had all sorts in our family, but never a traitor!"
From a drinking session, Brendan Francis Behan at the age of eight years in 1931 returned home on one day with his granny and a crony, Ulick O'Connor recounts. A passerby 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!"
Brendan Francis Behan left school at 13 years of age to follow in footsteps of his father as a house painter.
Brendan Francis Behan composed poetry, short stories, and novels in English. He also volunteered.
A mother in the inner city of Dublin bore Brendan Francis Behan into an educated class family. Christine English, his grandmother, owned a number of properties in the area and the house on Russell street near Mountjoy square. Peadar Kearney, his uncle and author of song and the national anthem, also lived in the area. Stephen Behan, his father, acted in the war of independence, painted houses, and read classic literature to the children at bedtime from such sources as Émile Zola, John Galsworthy, and Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant; Kathleen Behan, his mother, took them on literary tours of the city. From father, interest of Behan in literature came; his mother originated his political ideas. She politically acted in all her life and personally befriended Michael Collins. Brendan Behan lamented "The Laughing Boy" at the age of thirteen to Collins. His mother gave the affectionate nickname, the title, to Collins. Kathleen published "Mother of all the Behans," a collaboration with Brian Behan, another son, in 1984.
Peadar Kearney, uncle of Brendan Francis Behan, composed Amhrán na bhFiann , the national anthem. People best knew "The Patriot Game," the song of Dominic Behan, his also renowned brother; Brian Behan, another sibling, a prominent radical political activist, spoke in public, acted, and authored. Brendan and Brian shared not 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, to "have that bastard Brian shot—we've had all sorts in our family, but never a traitor!"
From a drinking session, Brendan Francis Behan at the age of eight years in 1931 returned home on one day with his granny and a crony, Ulick O'Connor recounts. A passerby 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!"
Brendan Francis Behan left school at 13 years of age to follow in footsteps of his father as a house painter.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
August 8, 2020
The quare fellow, a condemned murderer who butchered his brother like a pig, is due to be hanged in the morning. Does he deserve the death penalty? Behan doesn't bring him on stage, so we aren't required to vilify or sympathise with him directly. What we are shown is the brutalising effect of capital punishment on those most closely involved in carrying out the sentence. Behan shows (not without humour) how we are all degraded by state murder.
April 11, 2020
Pandemic Book No.5. I’ve wanted to experience this play for years. The Pogues tune “The Auld Triangle” is from this play and Brendan Behan is one of Shane MacGowan’s inspirations. I also was able to see the film based on this play a little while ago. The film, while based on the play, is very different in some aspects. Set in Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison in the early 1950s on the eve of the execution by hanging of two convicted murderers. The play is very much focused on the prisoners while the film is much more do in the guards. I enjoyed the film, but I have to say that the play is much more somber and chilling, particularly the second act, where the prisoners are digging the grave for the man to hanged the next morning, and the start of the third act, where guards and prisoners talk about the impending execution with an oddly effective mixture of disgust, resignation and sympathy for the condemned man.
Reading plays is an odd experience. I find that plays are equally about the writing and the staging (sets, acting, etc.). I find that reading a play is enlightening, but that I’m only getting half of the experience. Regardless, while I am not certain of the relevancy if The Quare Fellow today, I Behan’s truly deserves the recognition he received for writing this one. I just wish I could see it actually being staged at some point.
Reading plays is an odd experience. I find that plays are equally about the writing and the staging (sets, acting, etc.). I find that reading a play is enlightening, but that I’m only getting half of the experience. Regardless, while I am not certain of the relevancy if The Quare Fellow today, I Behan’s truly deserves the recognition he received for writing this one. I just wish I could see it actually being staged at some point.
February 2, 2020
[Random read. 36, Drama.]
In an Irish prison, warders and prisoners alike nervously await the execution of a the titular quare fellow, who apparently butchered his brother with a meat chopper. It's a wretched place, with youths hooting at the older prisoners; the older ones pretending to be hurt so they can gulp down medicinal alcohol; and the chaplains affable, tipsy, and indifferent. One warder is very sympathetic, and his kindness startles the suspicious lags, as well as his own superior. The play is described by all critics as a scathing satire on capital punishment, but I feel like this is missing the mark; the play is something more than that. The condemned man never speaks, and his execution happens off stage, so there's little to humanize him or tug at the audience's heartstrings at his fate. The play is rather an examination of how an execution affects everyone else, but that's not quite the whole story either. To me, this bleak drama, with its sense of pointlessness, nihilism, selfishness, and impending doom hanging over all the proceedings, is more an attack on the hypocrisies and corruption of those in power. Both British and Irish authorities are criticized ("the Free State didn't change anything but the badges in the warders' caps"), as well as religious figures (after some vague, unsympathetic remarks to a whipped prisoner, a clergyman flees, "leaving a smell of booze that would have tripped you up"). The dialogue features several sharp exchanges and a good deal of black humor, but these don't efface the overall mood of the play, which is bleak and cynical.
In an Irish prison, warders and prisoners alike nervously await the execution of a the titular quare fellow, who apparently butchered his brother with a meat chopper. It's a wretched place, with youths hooting at the older prisoners; the older ones pretending to be hurt so they can gulp down medicinal alcohol; and the chaplains affable, tipsy, and indifferent. One warder is very sympathetic, and his kindness startles the suspicious lags, as well as his own superior. The play is described by all critics as a scathing satire on capital punishment, but I feel like this is missing the mark; the play is something more than that. The condemned man never speaks, and his execution happens off stage, so there's little to humanize him or tug at the audience's heartstrings at his fate. The play is rather an examination of how an execution affects everyone else, but that's not quite the whole story either. To me, this bleak drama, with its sense of pointlessness, nihilism, selfishness, and impending doom hanging over all the proceedings, is more an attack on the hypocrisies and corruption of those in power. Both British and Irish authorities are criticized ("the Free State didn't change anything but the badges in the warders' caps"), as well as religious figures (after some vague, unsympathetic remarks to a whipped prisoner, a clergyman flees, "leaving a smell of booze that would have tripped you up"). The dialogue features several sharp exchanges and a good deal of black humor, but these don't efface the overall mood of the play, which is bleak and cynical.
January 20, 2018
I first read this play in about 1982 when I was sixteen. I loved it immediately because coming from Irish parents the dialogue made me laugh continuously and I knew the famous song well. I could hear the Dublin accents bouncing off the prison cell walls.
I think if you don't have the benefit of that 'ear' it will be quite hard to penetrate this writing and really feel what Behan was doing. You might just read it and wonder 'what the hell is this' and have the sense that this is something that only worked in the 1950s. However, if you do, it's a joy.
Behan was without doubt a truly gifted playwright and in this short play he really shows how he could balance wit and bleak to create a subtle analysis. You do need to consider when it was written but it is a brilliant study of human behaviour, prison, capital punishment, sexuality, politics and religion.
I think if you don't have the benefit of that 'ear' it will be quite hard to penetrate this writing and really feel what Behan was doing. You might just read it and wonder 'what the hell is this' and have the sense that this is something that only worked in the 1950s. However, if you do, it's a joy.
Behan was without doubt a truly gifted playwright and in this short play he really shows how he could balance wit and bleak to create a subtle analysis. You do need to consider when it was written but it is a brilliant study of human behaviour, prison, capital punishment, sexuality, politics and religion.
January 13, 2024
“He thinks he’s an intellectual”
“Is that what they’re calling it now?”
bruvvv
“Is that what they’re calling it now?”
bruvvv
February 3, 2008
What I've learned from the book so far about Irish Prison Slang:
- Quare - strange or remarkable, also seems ot have somethign to do with being a lifer
- Mot - Woman (I think hot and young)
- Squealer - Baby
- Screw - Prison Guard
- Dog End - Cigarette Butt
Well, this play takes place the day before and the morning of a hanging at an Irish Prison. I believe the moral of this play is hanging is a terrible way to die and the state killing people is awful and that compared to those things, Irish prison ain't half bad. It's about survived the system as well.
It's about how once your int he prison culture, you're in and even when you leave everyone knows your coming back.
I liked this play, though it's not what you'd call an upper.
- Quare - strange or remarkable, also seems ot have somethign to do with being a lifer
- Mot - Woman (I think hot and young)
- Squealer - Baby
- Screw - Prison Guard
- Dog End - Cigarette Butt
Well, this play takes place the day before and the morning of a hanging at an Irish Prison. I believe the moral of this play is hanging is a terrible way to die and the state killing people is awful and that compared to those things, Irish prison ain't half bad. It's about survived the system as well.
It's about how once your int he prison culture, you're in and even when you leave everyone knows your coming back.
I liked this play, though it's not what you'd call an upper.
February 22, 2017
A fascinating topic by an enigmatic writer.
The Quare Fellow depicts the 24 hours preceding an execution at an unnamed prison in Ireland. It accounts the way this execution affects the inmates and guards, yet importantly, not the 'quare fellow' himself.
It is a humorous depiction of a bleak subject, and a great little read which provokes thoughts of capital punishment and the way people perceived it. Behan clearly evokes the idea of being against capital punishment, this not only being as cruel way to take a life, but the adverse affects it had upon those around it.
It also conveys the attitudes within the prison system at that time, such things as '"laggings" suggesting that once a prisoner fell in to the system, they struggled to crawl out.
The Quare Fellow depicts the 24 hours preceding an execution at an unnamed prison in Ireland. It accounts the way this execution affects the inmates and guards, yet importantly, not the 'quare fellow' himself.
It is a humorous depiction of a bleak subject, and a great little read which provokes thoughts of capital punishment and the way people perceived it. Behan clearly evokes the idea of being against capital punishment, this not only being as cruel way to take a life, but the adverse affects it had upon those around it.
It also conveys the attitudes within the prison system at that time, such things as '"laggings" suggesting that once a prisoner fell in to the system, they struggled to crawl out.
March 19, 2018
Having left Dublin almost 15 years ago, this was a great reminder of slang I haven't heard in years!
August 21, 2025
Neat observation of the way homosexuality and the death-penalty were carried in certain societies in a not-so-far- away era. Sometimes humorous, darker and grim in its remaining, this okay encapsulates the barbarism of an institution that teaches civility backwards. Whilst it doesn’t provide any answer, it remains 71 years after its release, grim and stark as intended at first hand.
December 26, 2025
The dullest play about prison I've ever read, with nothing unique or new to say about capital punishment.
May 17, 2025
"all the Free State changed was the buckles on the warders caps" fire
September 9, 2021
Brendan Behan tackles the subject of capital punishment in The Quare Fellow. The work is a comedy-drama, but moments of humour never obscure the tragic story. Behan loosely based the work on the real-life case of Bernard Kirwan who was sentenced to death for the murder of his brother. The execution of Kirwan was carried out in Mountjoy prison, Dublin, in 1943. In the play, Behan sets up an immediate comparison by portraying two men on death row. The different fates of these two men spark a reader’s awareness of inequalities in the system that Behan is depicting. The language of the play is rich in Hiberno-English and prison slang and wonderfully crafted by Behan with fine touches of empathy and pathos. The playwright had personal experience of prison life, and this is apparent in the play. The work is more complex than it may at first appear as it tackles the themes of injustice, dehumanization, nationality, and class.
For a more detailed analysis, see my blog post - my link text
For a more detailed analysis, see my blog post - my link text
April 19, 2013
I must say, I think I preferred this to Waiting for Godot - which I surprisingly enjoyed quite a bit. Not entirely sure I grasped the entire meaning of the play or anything though, so now I'm entering into the world of speculation and google!
November 4, 2020
Dieses Drama ließ sich flüssig lesen, trotz der verschiedenen Charaktere, die dort wie in einem Theaterstück sprachen. Sprachlich, der Satzbau und die Ausdrucksweise, war es auch sehr angenehm. Inhaltlich bekommt mein einen Eindruck ins Leben in dem Gefängnis, die Hierarchien, die Stärken und vor allem Schwächen einzelner und wie sie jeweils mit der Todesstrafe eines anderen umgehen. Ein schönes Buch, auf das ich nur durch die Insel Bücherei gestoßen bin.
January 11, 2018
My friend raved about this play as he'd read it at school. I didn't finish it as I didn't have the same connection to it. You find out a lot about Irish prison life and the voices of the characters that surround the 'Quare fellow' (who never speaks) are full of life but I was not sufficiently inspired to finish it. One to see on stage I'm sure.
December 24, 2025
مقدمة انيس منصور ضرورية لفهم المسرحية …برغم كدة في المسرحية الكثير من الملل والثقل …وربما هو أمر مقصود …فالأحداث تدور في سجن ..و من الواضح تعمد اظهار (عاديّة ) الموت و أن إعدام شخص هو أمر بسيط لا يستحق الإهتمام …
January 31, 2024
Hits on all social levels, and on all levels of the mind and the heart.
December 31, 2023
Of its time groundbreaking - 2023 3.5/10
April 23, 2012
Writer's Block. A visual:
[Scene 1]
Among the rhododendrons, walking with artificial stride in memory of Hamlet, I, the lover of all honest science, inwardly hark back to a time when the prayers and the bells made complete sense.
[Scene 2]
Marshall D., the resident troll, somewhat understated in role, opines the following: The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
[Scene 3]
Still amongst rhododendrons, now inwardly viewing benediction with an innocent child's conviction, I intone: A burnt child loves the fire.
[Scene 4]
In the background John Cougar Mellencamp lies dead.
[Scene 1]
Among the rhododendrons, walking with artificial stride in memory of Hamlet, I, the lover of all honest science, inwardly hark back to a time when the prayers and the bells made complete sense.
[Scene 2]
Marshall D., the resident troll, somewhat understated in role, opines the following: The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
[Scene 3]
Still amongst rhododendrons, now inwardly viewing benediction with an innocent child's conviction, I intone: A burnt child loves the fire.
[Scene 4]
In the background John Cougar Mellencamp lies dead.
December 8, 2011
Brendan Behan's most popular play is evocative from start to finish. The musical quality of life in the gaol adds to the sensitivity of the whole treatment. Top class.
March 17, 2012
Musical and sometimes humorous statement against capital punishment.
April 1, 2014
Set mostly inside (and near?) Mountjoy Prison, across from the Mater Hospital, Dublin, near the North Circular Road.
June 26, 2016
The language in this play is a joy. The characters use singsong colloquialisms, many of which I've not heard for many years. A beautiful read.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews