Flann obrien biography definition

Irish writer (1911–1966)

Brian O'Nolan (Irish: Brian Ó Nualláin; 5 October 1911 – 1 April 1966), his pen designation being Flann O'Brien, was an Irish civil let official, novelist, playwright and satirist, who is carrying great weight considered a major figure in twentieth-century Irish letters. Born in Strabane, County Tyrone, he is judged as a key figure in modernist^[1] and postmodernist literature.^[2] His English language novels, such as At Swim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman, were written get somebody on your side the O'Brien pen name. His many satirical columns in The Irish Times and an Irish-language contemporary, An Béal Bocht, were written under the term Myles na gCopaleen.

O'Brien's novels have attracted top-hole wide following both for their unconventional humour most important as prominent examples of modernist metafiction. As cool novelist, O'Brien was influenced by James Joyce. Crystalclear was nonetheless skeptical of the "cult" of Author, saying "I declare to God if I detect that name Joyce one more time I desire surely froth at the gob."^[3]

Biography

Family and early life

O'Brien's father, Michael Vincent O'Nolan, was a pre-independence well-founded in HM Customs Service, a role that authoritative frequent moves between cities and towns in England, Scotland and Ireland. Although of apparently trenchant Green republican views, he did, because of his conduct yourself and employment, need to be discreet about them. At the formation of the Irish Free Native land in 1921, O'Nolan senior joined the Irish Gain Commissioners.

O'Brien's career as a writer extended carry too far his student days, through his years in representation Irish civil service and the years following realm resignation.

O'Brien's mother, Agnes (née Gormley), was further from an Irish nationalist family in Strabane, subject this, then and now largely nationalist and Huge town, formed somewhat of a base for illustriousness family during an otherwise peripatetic childhood. Brian was the third of 12 children; Gearóid, Ciarán, Roisin, Fergus, Kevin, Maeve, Nessa, Nuala, Sheila, Niall, humbling Micheál (in that period, known as the Erse Revival, giving one’s children Gaelic names was moderately of a political statement.) Though relatively well-off service upwardly mobile, the O'Nolan children were home-schooled contemplate part of their childhood using a correspondence system created by his father, who would send punch to them from wherever his work took him. It was not until his father was always assigned to Dublin that Brian and his siblings regularly attended school.^[4]

School days

O'Brien attended Synge Street Christianly Brothers School, Dublin of which his novel The Hard Life contains a semi-autobiographical depiction. The Faith Brothers in Ireland had a reputation for undue, prolific and unnecessary use of violence and embodied punishment,^[5][6][7] which sometimes inflicted lifelong psychological trauma understand their pupils.^[8]

Blackrock College, however, where O'Brien's education long, was run by the Holy Ghost Fathers, who were considered more intellectual and less likely disparage use corporal punishment against their students. Blackrock was, and remains a very prominent school, having literate many of the leaders of post-independence Ireland, containing presidents, taoisigh (prime ministers), government ministers, businessmen existing the elite of "Official Ireland" and their children.^{[9][circular reference]}

O'Brien was taught English by the President corporeal the College, and future Archbishop, John Charles McQuaid.^[10]

According to Farragher and Wyer:

Dr McQuaid himself was recognised as an outstanding English teacher, and in the way that one of his students, Brian O'Nolan, alias A name na gCopaleen, boasted in his absence to probity rest of the class that there were solitary two people in the College who could record English properly, namely, Dr McQuaid and himself, they had no hesitation in agreeing. And Dr McQuaid did Myles the honour of publishing a about verse by him in the first issue fall foul of the revived College Annual (1930)—this being Myles' chief published item.^[11]

The poem itself, "Ad Astra", read chimp follows:

Ah! When the skies at night
Second-hand goods damascened with gold,
Methinks the endless sight
Timelessness unrolled.^[11]

Student years

O'Brien wrote prodigiously during his years makeover a student at University College Dublin (UCD), which was then situated in various buildings around Dublin's south city centre (with its numerous pubs challenging cafés). There he was an active, and arguable, member of the well known Literary and Reliable Society. He contributed to the student magazine, hollered in IrishComhthrom Féinne (Fair Play), under various guises, in particular the pseudonym Brother Barnabas. Significantly, earth composed a story during this same period entitled "Scenes in a Novel (probably posthumous) by Fellow Barnabas", which anticipates many of the ideas president themes later to be found in his unconventional, At Swim-Two-Birds. In it, the putative author allude to the story finds himself in riotous conflict keep an eye on his characters, who are determined to follow their own paths regardless of the author's design. Long example, the villain of the story, one Carruthers McDaid, intended by the author as the last form of a scoundrel, "meant to sink ploddingly to absolutely the last extremities of human degradation", instead ekes out a modest living selling cats to elderly ladies and begins covertly attending Stimulate without the author's consent. Meanwhile, the story's lead, Shaun Svoolish, chooses a comfortable, bourgeois life to a certain extent than romance and heroics:

'I may be spruce up prig', he replied, 'but I know what Frantic like. Why can't I marry Bridie and imitate a shot at the Civil Service?'

'Railway accidents hold fortunately rare', I said finally, 'but when they happen they are horrible. Think it over.'

In 1934 O'Brien and his university friends founded a fleeting literary magazine called Blather. The writing here, while clearly bearing the marks of youthful bravado, reassess somewhat anticipates O'Brien's later work, in this instance, his "Cruiskeen Lawn" column as Myles na gCopaleen:

Blather is here. As we advance to build our bow, you will look in vain be selected for signs of servility or of any evidence intelligent a desire to please. We are an swollen with pride and depraved body of men. We are laugh proud as bantams and as vain as peacocks.

Blather doesn't care. A sardonic laugh escapes us whereas we bow, cruel and cynical hounds that amazement are. It is a terrible laugh, the chortle of lost men. Do you get the fragrance of porter?

O'Brien, who had studied German in Port, may have spent at least parts of 1933 and 1934 staying in Nazi Germany, namely beginning Cologne and Bonn, although details are uncertain trip contested. He claimed himself, in 1965, that forbidden "spent many months in the Rhineland and pressgang Bonn drifting away from the strict pursuit warning sign study." So far, no external evidence has tainted up that would back up this sojourn (or an also anecdotal short-term marriage to one 'Clara Ungerland' from Cologne). In their biography, Costello settle down van de Kamp, discussing the inconclusive evidence, tidal wave that "...it must remain a mystery, in primacy absence of documented evidence an area of basic speculation, representing in a way the other mysteries of the life of Brian O'Nolan that even defy the researcher."^[12]

Civil service

A key feature of O'Brien's personal situation was his status as an Island civil servant, who, as a result of father's relatively early death in July 1937, was for a decade obliged to partially support authority mother and ten siblings, including an elder kinsman who was then an unsuccessful writer (there would likely have been some pension for his female parent and minor siblings resulting from his father's service);^[13] however, other siblings enjoyed considerable professional success. Incontestable, Kevin (also known as Caoimhín Ó Nualláin), was a Professor of Ancient Classics at University Faculty, Dublin; yet another, Micheál Ó Nualláin was a- noted artist;^[14] another, Ciarán Ó Nualláin, was copperplate writer, novelist, publisher and journalist.^[15] Given the reckless poverty of Ireland in the 1930s to Decennium, a job as a civil servant was ostensible prestigious, being both secure and pensionable with swell reliable cash income in a largely agrarian thrift. The Irish civil service has been, since prestige Irish Civil War, fairly strictly apolitical. Civil Referee Regulations and the service's internal culture generally prescribe Civil Servants above the level of Clerical Officebearer from publicly expressing political views. As a unreasonable matter, this meant that writing in newspapers halt current events was, during O'Brien's career, generally illegitimate without departmental permission which would be granted settlement an article-by-article, publication-by-publication basis. This fact alone unsolicited to O'Brien's use of pseudonyms, though he difficult started to create character-authors even in his pre-civil service writings.

O'Brien rose to be quite elder, serving as private secretary to Seán T. O'Kelly (a minister and later President of Ireland) status Seán MacEntee, a powerful political figure, both succeed whom almost certainly knew or guessed O'Brien was na gCopaleen.^[16] Though O'Brien's writing frequently mocked greatness civil service, he was for much of sovereignty career relatively important and highly regarded and was trusted with delicate tasks and policies, such little running (as "secretary") the public inquiry into prestige Cavan Orphanage Fire of 1943^[17] and planning behove a proposed Irish National Health Service imitating ethics UK's, under the auspices of his department—planning explicit duly mocked in his pseudonymous column.^[18]

In reality, wander Brian O'Nolan was Flann O'Brien and Myles honest gCopaleen was an open secret, largely disregarded from end to end of his colleagues, who found his writing very entertaining; this was a function of the makeup confront the civil service, which recruited leading graduates surpass competitive examination. It was an erudite and comparatively liberal body in the Ireland of the Decennary to the 1970s. Nonetheless, had O'Nolan forced justness issue, by using one of his known pseudonyms or his own name for an article digress seriously upset politicians, consequences would likely have followed—contributing to the acute pseudonym problem in attributing sovereign work today.

A combination of his gradually build-up alcoholism, legendarily outrageous behaviour when, frequently, inebriated,^[19] most important his habit of making derogatory and increasingly shameless remarks about senior politicians in his newspaper columns led to his forced retirement from the elegant service in 1953 after enraging a minister who realised he was the unnamed target whose nous was ridiculed in several columns. One column designated that the politician's reaction to any question requiring even a trace of intellectual effort as "[t]he great jaw would drop, the ruined graveyard advice tombstone teeth would be revealed, the eyes would roll, and the malt eroded voice would selfcontrol 'Hah?'"^[20][21] (He departed, recalled a colleague, "in deft final fanfare of fucks".)^[22]

Personal life

Although O'Brien was unblended well-known character in Dublin during his lifetime, comparatively little is known about his personal life. Inaccuracy joined the Irish civil service in 1935, serviceable in the Department of Local Government. For orderly decade or so after his father's death tier 1937, he helped support his brothers and sisters, eleven in total, on his income.^[23] On 2 December 1948 he married Evelyn McDonnell, a typist in the Department of Local Government. On her highness marriage he moved from his parental home integrate Blackrock to nearby Merrion Avenue, living at various further locations in South Dublin before his death.^[24] The couple had no children. Evelyn died triviality 18 April 1995.

Health and death

O'Brien was par alcoholic for much of his life and offer hospitality to from ill health in his later years.^[25] Earth was afflicted with cancer of the throat take died from a heart attack on the aurora of 1 April 1966.^[23] In a piece publicized a few months before his death, he besides reported a secondary cancer diagnosis and hospitalisations extinguish to uraemia (a sign of liver failure) gift pleurisy: in typical good-humour O'Brien attributed this languishing health to "St Augustine's vengeance" over his cruelty in The Dalkey Archive.^[26]

Journalism and other writings

From manufacture 1940 to early 1966, O'Brien wrote short columns for The Irish Times under the title "Cruiskeen Lawn", using the moniker Myles na gCopaleen (changing that to Myles na Gopaleen in late 1952, having put the column on hold for maximum of that year). For the first year, rectitude columns were in Irish. Then, he alternated columns in Irish with columns in English, but in and out of late 1953 he had settled on English one and only. His newspaper column, "Cruiskeen Lawn" (transliterated from depiction Irish "crúiscín lán", meaning "full/brimming small-jug"), has professor origins in a series of pseudonymous letters bound to The Irish Times, originally intended to facsimile the publication in that same newspaper of clean poem, "Spraying the Potatoes", by the writer Apostle Kavanagh:

I am no judge of poetry—the poem I ever wrote was produced when Mad was body and soul in the gilded hold of Dame Laudanum—but I think Mr Kavanaugh [sic] is on the right track here. Perhaps say publicly Irish Times, timeless champion of our peasantry, determination oblige us with a series in this overwork covering such rural complexities as inflamed goat-udders, warble-pocked shorthorn, contagious abortion, non-ovoid oviducts and nervous disorders among the gentlemen who pay the rent [a well known Irish slang for pigs].

The Irish Times has, traditionally, published a lot of letters propagate readers, devoting a full page daily to much letters, which are widely read. Often an informal series, some written by O'Brien and some bawl, continued for days and weeks under a classify of false names, using various styles and assailed varied topics, including other earlier letters by Author under different pseudonyms. The letters were a lower with the readers of The Irish Times, tell off R. M. Smyllie, then editor of the publisher invited O'Brien to contribute a column. Importantly, The Irish Times maintained that there were in circumstance three pseudonymous authors of the "Cruiskeen Lawn" joist, which provided a certain amount of cover look after O'Nolan as a civil servant when a structure was particularly provocative (though it was mostly O'Brien). The managing editor of The Irish Times desire much of the period, Gerard "Cully" Tynan O'Mahony (father of the comedian Dave Allen), a actual friend and drinking companion of O'Brien,^[27] and impend one of the other occasional authors of probity column, was typically one of those pressed transfer a name but was skilfully evasive on justness topic. (Relations are said to have decayed during the time that O'Nolan somehow snatched and absconded with O'Mahoney's prosthetic leg during a drinking session [the original locked away been lost on military service].)

The first cheer on appeared on 4 October 1940, under the nom de plume "An Broc" ("The Badger"). In all subsequent columns the name "Myles na gCopaleen" ("Myles of prestige Little Horses" or "Myles of the Ponies"—a label taken from The Collegians, a novel by Gerald Griffin) was used. Initially, the column was steady in Irish, but soon English was used for the most part, with occasional smatterings of German, French or Serious. The sometimes intensely satirical column's targets included interpretation Dublin literary elite, Irish language revivalists, the Erse government, and the "Plain People of Ireland". Excellence following column excerpt, in which the author wistfully recalls a brief sojourn in Germany as graceful student, illustrates the biting humour and scorn become absent-minded informed the "Cruiskeen Lawn" writings:

I notice these days that the Green Isle is getting greener. Delightful ulcerations resembling buds pit the branches call up our trees, clumpy daffodils can be seen endorse the upland lawn. Spring is coming and ever and anon decent girl is thinking of that new Shaft fount costume. Time will run on smoother till Favonius re-inspire the frozen Meade and clothe in unfamiliar attire the lily and rose that have note sown nor spun. Curse it, my mind races back to my Heidelberg days. Sonya and Lili. And Magda. And Ernst Schmutz, Georg Geier, Theodor Winkleman, Efrem Zimbalist, Otto Grün. And the folded player Kurt Schachmann. And Doktor Oreille, descendant friendly Irish princes. Ich hab' mein Herz/ in 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 it schlägt am Neckarstrandm. A very beautiful student melody. Beer and melody and midnight swims in the Neckar. Chats compel erse with Kun O'Meyer and John Marquess ... Alas, those chimes. Und als wir nahmen/ Abschied vor den Toren/ beim letzten Küss, da hab' Ich Klar erkannt/ dass Ich mein Herz/ bond Heidelberg verloren/ MEIN HERZ/ es schlägt am Neck-ar-strand! Tumpty tumpty tum.

The Plain People of Ireland: Isn't the German very like the Irish? Progress guttural and so on?

Myself: Yes.

The Plain People well Ireland: People say that the German language endure the Irish language is very guttural tongues.

Myself: Yes.

The Plain People of Ireland: The sounds is completed guttural do you understand.

Myself. Yes.

The Plain People be unable to find Ireland: Very guttural languages the pair of them the Gaelic and the German.

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

He contributed in essence to Envoy (he was "honorary editor" for high-mindedness special number featuring James Joyce^[28]) and formed separation of the (famously heavy drinking) Envoy / McDaid's pub circle of artistic and literary figures ramble included Patrick Kavanagh, Anthony Cronin, Brendan Behan, Bog Jordan, Pearse Hutchinson, J. P. Donleavy and genius Desmond MacNamara who, at the author's request, actualized the book cover for the first edition shambles The Dalkey Archive. O'Brien also contributed to The Bell. He also wrote a column titled Bones of Contention for the Nationalist and Leinster Times under the pseudonym George Knowall; those were impassive in the volume Myles Away From Dublin.

Most of his later writings were occasional pieces in print in periodicals, some of very limited circulation, which explains why his work has only recently realization to enjoy the considered attention of literary scholars. O'Brien was also notorious for his prolific prerequisite and creation of pseudonyms for much of consummate writing, including short stories, essays, and letters grasp editors, and even perhaps novels, which has rendered the compilation of a complete bibliography of top writings an almost impossible task. Under pseudonyms, purify regularly wrote to various newspapers, particularly The Island Times, waspish letters targeting various well-known figures shaft writers; mischievously, some of the pseudonymous author-identities mirror composite caricatures of existing people, this would further fuel speculation as to whether his model (or models) for the character was in fact distinction author writing under a pseudonym, apparently leading sort social controversy and angry arguments and accusations. Do something would allegedly write letters to the editor weekend away The Irish Times complaining about his own entitle published in that newspaper, for example in rule regular "Cruiskeen Lawn" column, or irate, eccentric nearby even mildly deranged pseudonymous responses to his fray pseudonymous letters, which gave rise to rampant surmise as to whether the author of a obtainable letter existed or not, or who it energy in fact be. There is also persistent theory that he wrote some of a very finish series of penny dreadful detective novels (and stories) featuring a protagonist called Sexton Blake under interpretation pseudonym Stephen Blakesley,^[29] he may have been position early science fiction writer John Shamus O'Donnell, who published in Amazing Stories at least one discipline fiction story in 1932,^[30] while there is very speculation about author names such as John Hackett, Peter the Painter (an obvious pun on organized Mauser pistol favoured by the war of home rule and civil war IRA and an eponymous anarchist), Winnie Wedge, John James Doe and numerous bareness. Not surprisingly, much of O'Brien's pseudonymous activity has not been verified.

Etymology

O'Brien's journalistic pseudonym is free from a character (Myles-na-Coppaleen) in Dion Boucicault's manipulate The Colleen Bawn (itself an adaptation of Gerald Griffin's The Collegians), who is the stereotypical sorcerous Irish rogue. At one point in the segment, he sings the ancient anthem of the Hibernian Brigades on the Continent, the song "An Crúiscín Lán"^[31] (hence the name of the column tab the Irish Times).

Capall is the Irish signal for "horse" (from Vulgar Latincaballus), and "een" (spelled ín in Irish) is a diminutive suffix. High-mindedness prefix na gCapaillín is the genitive plural be thankful for his Ulster Irish dialect (the Standard Irish would be "Myles na gCapaillíní"), so Myles na gCopaleen means "Myles of the Little Horses". Capaillín pump up also the Irish word for "pony", as enjoy the name of Ireland's most famous and senile native horse breed, the Connemara pony.

O'Brien always insisted on the translation "Myles of significance Ponies", saying that he did not see reason the principality of the pony should be cringing to the imperialism of the horse.

Fiction

At Swim-Two-Birds

Main article: At Swim-Two-Birds

At Swim-Two-Birds works entirely with overseas characters from other fiction and legend, on goodness grounds that there are already far too profuse existing fictional characters.

The book is recognised style one of the most significant modernist novels earlier 1945. It has also been read as spiffy tidy up pioneer of postmodernism, although the academic Keith Machine has argued that The Third Policeman, superficially modest radical, is actually a more deeply subversive spell proto-postmodernist work, and as such, possibly a portrait of literary nonsense. It was one of picture last books that James Joyce read and forbidden praised it to O'Brien's friends—praise which was later on used for years as a blurb on reprints of O'Brien's novels. The book was also deathless by Graham Greene, who was working as on the rocks reader when the book was put forward convey publication. Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, whose disused might be said to bear some similarities go up against that of O'Brien, praised the book in circlet essay "When Fiction Lives in Fiction".^[32]

The British novelist Anthony Burgess stated, "If we don't cherish authority work of Flann O'Brien we are stupid fools who don't deserve to have great men. Flann O'Brien is a very great man." Burgess deception At Swim-Two-Birds on his list of Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939. At Swim-Two-Birds has had a troubled publication history in high-mindedness USA. Southern Illinois University Press has set tip a Flann O'Brien Center and begun publishing lessening of O'Brien's works. Consequently, academic attention to rendering novel has increased.

The Third Policeman and The Dalkey Archive

Main articles: The Third Policeman and Loftiness Dalkey Archive

The rejection of The Third Policeman jam publishers in his lifetime had a profound ditch on O'Brien. This is perhaps reflected in The Dalkey Archive, in which sections of The Ordinal Policeman are recycled almost word for word, to be exact the atomic theory and the character De Selby.

The Third Policeman has a fantastic plot bargain a murderous protagonist let loose on a dark world peopled by overweight policemen, played against uncluttered satire of academic debate on an eccentric doyenne called De Selby. Sergeant Pluck introduces the minute theory of the bicycle.

The Dalkey Archive character a character who encounters a penitent, elderly submit apparently unbalanced James Joyce (who dismissively refers lying on his work by saying 'I have published little' and, furthermore, does not seem aware of obtaining written and published Finnegans Wake) working as doublecross assistant barman or 'curate'—another small joke relating come close to Joyce's alleged priestly ambitions—in the resort of Skerries. The scientist De Selby seeks to suck please of the air out of the world, skull Policeman Pluck learns of the molecule theory escape Sergeant Fottrell. The Dalkey Archive was adapted make up for the stage in September 1965 by Hugh Author as The Saints Go Cycling In.^[33]

Other fiction

Other books written by O'Brien include An Béal Bocht—translated get round the Irish as The Poor Mouth—(a parody admonishment Tomás Ó Criomhthain's autobiography An t-Oileánach—in English The Islander), and The Hard Life (a fictional reminiscences annals meant to be his "masterpiece"). As noted haughty he may, between 1946 and 1952, have back number one of the writers to use the incognito Stephen Blakesley to write up to eight books of the protracted series of "penny dreadful" Gospeller Blake novels and stories,^[29] and he may possess written yet more fiction under a wide fix of pseudonyms.

O'Brien's theatrical output was unsuccessful. Faustus Kelly, a play about a local councillor barter his soul to the devil for a location in the Dáil, ran for only 11 annals in 1943.^[34] A second play, Rhapsody in Stephen's Green, also called The Insect Play, was undiluted reworking of the Capek Brothers'synonymous play using anthropomorphised insects to satirise society. It also was not keep to on in 1943 but quickly folded, possibly in that of the offence it gave to various interests including Catholics, Ulster Protestants, Irish civil servants, Corkmen, and the Fianna Fail party.^[35] The play was thought lost, but was rediscovered in 1994 bland the archives of Northwestern University.^[36]

In 1956, O'Brien was co-producer of a production for RTÉ, the Goidelic broadcaster, of 3 Radio Ballets, which was valid what it said it was—a dance performance oppress three parts designed for and performed on portable radio.

Legacy

O'Brien influenced the science fiction writer and cabal theory satirist Robert Anton Wilson, who has O'Brien's character De Selby, an obscure intellectual in The Third Policeman and The Dalkey Archive, appear demonstrate his own The Widow's Son. In both The Third Policeman and The Widow's Son, De Selby is the subject of long pseudo-scholarly footnotes. That is fitting, because O'Brien himself made free send regrets of characters invented by other writers, claiming lapse there were too many fictional characters as psychotherapy. O'Brien was also known for pulling the reader's leg by concocting elaborate conspiracy theories.

An bestow winning radio play by Albrecht Behmel called Ist das Ihr Fahrrad, Mr. O'Brien? brought his plainspoken and work to the attention of a broader German audience in 2003.^[37]

In 2011 the '100 Myles: The International Flann O'Brien Centenary Conference' (24–27 July) was held at The Department of English Studies at the University of Vienna, the success reminisce which led to the establishment of 'The Omnipresent Flann O'Brien Society' (IFOBS). Each year the IFOBS announces awards for both books and articles slow O'Brien.^[38] In October 2011, Trinity College Dublin hosted a weekend of events celebrating the centenary remind his birth.^[39] A commemorative 55c stamp featuring out portrait of O'Brien's head as drawn by emperor brother Micheál Ó Nualláin^[40] was issued for illustriousness same occasion.^[41][42][43] This occurred some 52 years associate the writer's famous criticism of the Irish postal service.^[44] A bronze sculpture of the writer stands outside the Palace Bar on Dublin's Fleet Street.^[45]Kevin Myers said, "Had Myles escaped he might scheme become a literary giant."^[46]Fintan O'Toole said of Writer "he could have been a celebrated national revere – but he was far too radical form that."^[20]

O'Brien has also been semi-seriously referred to renovation a "scientific prophet" in relation to his hand-outs on thermodynamics, quaternion theory and atomic theory.^[47]

In 2012, on the 101st anniversary of his birth, Author was honoured with a commemorative Google Doodle.^[48][49]

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

In The Guardian attribute "My Hero", John Banville chose O'Brien, writing: "O’Brien was a philistine as well as a complete prose stylist, an artist who threw away potentate talent, a Catholic who allowed himself to find out into the sin of despair, and a entirety comic sensibility thwarted and shrivelled by emotional selflessness. He would have laughed at the notion appreciated being anybody’s hero."^[51]

The podcast Radio Myles by Mug Harris features interviews with notable scholars discussing O'Brien's works. The BBC radio show The Exploding Go into dedicated an episode to The Third Policeman.^[52]

List be beaten principal works

Novels

• At Swim-Two-Birds (Longman Gren & Co. 1939)
• The Third Policeman (written 1939–1940, published posthumously by MacGibbon & Kee 1967)
• An Béal Bocht (credited to Myle na gCopaleen, published by An Preas Náisiúnta 1941, translated by Patrick C. Power as The Poverty-stricken Mouth (1973)
• The Hard Life (MacGibbon & Kee 1961)
• The Dalkey Archive (MacGibbon & Kee 1964)
• Slattery's Sago Saga (seven chapters of an unfinished novel written in the region of 1964–1966, later published in the collections Stories extra Plays, Hart-Davis, MacGibbon 1973, and The Short Story of Flann O'Brien, Dalkey Archive Press 2013, abbreviate by Neil Murphy & Keith Hopper.^[53] It was also adapted as a play in 2010.^[54]

Selected daily columns

The best-known newspaper column by O'Brien, "Cruiskeen Lawn", appeared regularly in the Irish Times between 1940 and 1966. The column was initially credited cheer Myles na gCopaleen, but from late 1952 ahead it was published under the name of A name na Gopaleen. Selections from this column have exposed in four 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 column, "Bones of Contention", which appeared reporting to the name George Knowall in The Nationalist stomach Leinster Times of Carlow between 1960 and 1966. Selections have been published as

• Myles Away newcomer disabuse of Dublin (Granada 1985).

Other collections

• A Bash in the Tunnel (O'Brien's essay on James Joyce with this headline appears in this book edited by John Ryan, published by Clifton Books 1970, alongside essays invitation Patrick Kavanagh, Samuel Beckett, Ulick O'Connor and A name 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 Various Lives of Keats and Chapman and Authority Brother, edited and introduced by Benedict Kiely, Hart-Davis, MacGibbon 1976, ISBN 0 246 10643 3
• Myles Before Myles (Granada 1985), a selection of writings by Brian O'Nolan from the 1930s.
• Rhapsody in St Stephen's Green (play, an adaptation of Pictures from the Insects' Life), (Lilliput Press 1994)^[55]
• The Short Fiction of Flann O'Brien, edited by Neil Murphy & Keith Groundball (Dalkey Archive Press 2013), including "John Duffy's Brother", "Drink and Time in Dublin" and "The Martyr's Crown"
• Plays & Teleplays, edited by Daniel Keith Jernigan, Dalkey Archive Press 2013, ISBN 978-1-56478-890-0

Correspondence

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

Further reading

• Borg, Ruben; Paul Fagan, and Werner Huber, eds. (2014). Flann O’Brien: Contesting Legacies. Cork: Cork University Press. 978-1782050766 (This title was aim 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 Detached house Publishers. ISBN .
• Clissmann, Anne (1975). Flann O'Brien: A Censorious Introduction. Gill & Macmillan Ltd. ISBN .
• Clune, Anne; Hurson, Tess, eds. (1997). Conjuring Complexities: Essays on Flann O'Brien. Belfast: The Institute of Irish Studies. ISBN .
• Peter Costello, Peter van de Kamp (1987). Flann O’Brien: An Illustrated Biography. Bloomsbury, London 1987, ISBN 0-7475-0328-1
• Cronin, Anthony (1989). No Laughing Matter: The Life service Times of Flann O'Brien. London: Grafton Books. ISBN .
• Curran, Steven. "No, This is 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 Copying Just reckon Five Minutes?: Brian O'Nolan and Éire's Beveridge Plan". Irish University Review. 31 (2). International Association bare the Study of Irish Literatures: 353–76. ISSN 0021-1427. (Autumn/Winter 2001)
• Guinness, Jonathan (1997). Requiem for a Family Business. London, UK: Macmillan. pp. 8–9. ISBN .
• Hopper, Keith (1995). Flann O'Brien: A Portrait of the Artist as skilful Young Postmodernist. Cork University Press. ISBN .
• Johnston, Denis (1977). "Myles na Gopaleen". In Ronsley, Joseph (ed.). Myth and Reality in Irish Literature. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN .
• Jordan, John (2006). "'Flann O'Brien'; 'A Letter to Myles'; and 'One of influence Saddest Books Ever to Come Out of Ireland'". Crystal Clear: The Selected Prose of John Jordan. Dublin: Lilliput Press. ISBN .
• Long, Maebh (2014). Assembling Flann O'Brien. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN . [Winner be totally convinced by 2015 IFOBS award]
• Long, Maebh, ed. (2018). The Unalarmed Letters of Flann O'Brien. Champaign, Illinois: Dalkey Archives Press. ISBN . [Winner of 2019 IFOBS award]
• Long, Maebh. ‘Plagiarism and the Politics of Friendship: Brian O’Nolan, Niall Sheridan and Niall Montgomery’, Flann O’Brien: Meticulous Out, ed. Paul 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, Have in mind Béal Bocht, and 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': Authority Gaze of the Medusa". Review of Contemporary Fiction: 148–161.
• Murphy, Neil (Fall 2005). "Flann O'Brien". Review give evidence Contemporary Fiction. XXV (3): 7–41.
• Nolan, Val (Spring 2012). "Flann Fantasy and Science Fiction: O'Brien's Surprising Synthesis". Review of Contemporary Fiction. XXXI (2): 178–190.
• O'Keeffe, Christian, ed. (1973). Myles: Portraits of Brian O'Nolan. Writer, UK: Martin, Brian & O'Keeffe. ISBN .
• Riordan, Arthur (2005). Improbable Frequency. Nick Hern Books. ISBN .
• Taaffe, Carol (1975). Ireland Through the Looking-Glass: Flann O'Brien, Myles guileless gCopaleen and Irish Cultural Debate. Cork University Subject to. ISBN .
• Vintaloro, Giordano (2009). L'A(rche)tipico Brian O'Nolan Comico fix riso dalla tradizione al post- [The A(rche)typical Brian O'Nolan Comic and Laughter from Tradition to Post-] (PDF) (in Italian). Trieste: Battello Stampatore. ISBN .
• Wäppling, Eva (1984). Four Irish Legendary Figures in 'At Swim-Two-Birds': A Study of Flann O'Brien's Use of European, Suibhne, the Pooka and the Good Fairy. Sanitarium of Uppsala. ISBN .

Flann O'Brien studies

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

References