Brendan Behan

Brendan Behan was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and Irish Republican, an activist who wrote in both English and Irish. He was born in Dublin into a staunchly republican family, becoming a member of the IRA's youth organization Fianna Éireann at the age of fourteen. He was arrested in England while on a sabotage mission and sentenced to three years in a reform school at Hollesley Bay, Suffolk. He wrote an autobiographical account of this detention in Borstal Boy (1958). He was deported to Dublin in 1942 and was soon involved in a shooting incident in which a policeman was wounded. He was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 14 years. He served at Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, the setting of his first play, The Quare Fellow (1954), and later at the Curragh Military Camp, County Kildare, from which he was released under a general amnesty in 1946. While imprisoned, he perfected his Irish, the language he used for his delicately sensitive poetry and for An Giall (1957), the initial version of his second play, The Hostage (1958). Subsequent arrests followed, either for revolutionary activities or for drunkenness, which also forced various hospitalizations. In 1948 Behan went to Paris to write. Returning to Dublin in 1950, he wrote short stories and scripts for Radio Telefis Éireann and sang on a continuing program, Ballad Maker’s Saturday Night. In 1953 he began in the Irish Press a column about Dublin, later collected (1963) in Hold Your Hour and Have Another, with illustrations by his wife, Beatrice ffrench Salkeld, whom he had married in 1955. The Quare Fellow opened at the small Pike Theatre, Dublin, in 1954 and was an instant success. A tragicomedy concerning the reactions of jailors and prisoners to the hanging of a condemned man (the “quare fellow”), it presents an explosive statement on capital punishment. The play was subsequently performed in London (1956) and in New York City (1958). In 1958, Behan's play in the Irish language, An Giall had its debut at Dublin's Damer Theatre. Later, The Hostage, Behan's English-language adaptation of An Giall, met with great success internationally. Behan's autobiographical novel, Borstal Boy, was published the same year and became a worldwide best-seller. By the early 1960s, Behan reached the peak of his fame. He spent increasing amounts of time in New York City, famously declaring, To America, my new found land: The man that hates you hates the human race. By this point, Behan began spending time with various prominent people such as Harpo Marx and Arthur Miller and was followed by a young Bob Dylan. However, this newfound fame did nothing to aid his health or his work, with his alcoholism and diabetes medical conditions continuing to deteriorate. Brendan Behan's New York and Confessions of an Irish Rebel received little praise. He died of diabetes and alcoholism in 1964, at the age of 41.