The Dubbalin Man

by Brendan Behan

155 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Early 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.

Reviews

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were three Brendan Behans. There was the Republican, whose activities as a member of the IRA and consequent jailing were the basis for his autobiography Borstal Boy. There was the dramatist, whose plays The Quare Fellow and The Hostage are among the highlights of Irish drama. And there was the anthropologist, observing and recording humankind in the habitat of drinking establishments from Dublin to New York via London, Paris, and many places besides.

It was this last role that claimed his life at the early age of 41, his liver running up the white flag after a decades long onslaught. The results of Behan's anthropological studies come largely from this period. Like Dutch Schultz, a dying Behan, perhaps not always consciously, largely dictated books like Confessions of an Irish Rebel and Brendan Behan's Island on his death bed and they often read like it. This collection of articles from 1954 to 1956, however, stems from a period before booze ravaged Behan's ability to communicate his findings.

The most striking feature of these pieces, as Anthony Cronin notes in a perceptive introduction, is how British they are. Of course, Behan was an occasionally violent Republican, but, as Cronin notes, the Dublin of his youth was only a few years removed from being a British city. These stories are full of veterans and stories of the Crimea, the Boer War, and the First World War. By showing how thoroughly similar even a nationalist Irishmen can be to the average Englishman you are lead to ponder the question; why all the bloodshed?