He was managing to make a living as a journalist – on the radio and in newspapers – with evocations of the characters and colorful expressions of his inner-city childhood. In 1953, drawing on his extensive knowledge of criminal activity in Dublin and Paris, he wrote an engaging serial for the Irish Times which was later published as The scarperer (1964). He published 3 high-quality short stories, ‘A woman of no standing’ ( Envoy, Dublin, 1950), ‘After the wake’ ( Points, Paris, 1950), and ‘The confirmation suit’ ( Standard, Dublin, 1953). In 1950 2 of his poems were included in Nuabhéarsaíocht, Seán Ó Tuama's anthology of contemporary Irish verse. He wrote some dozen poems in Irish, revealing at times a sensitive aspect of his personality that was difficult to detect in his other writings. Convinced that the odds were stacked against a working-class writer in Dublin, he tried to settle in Paris, but eventually many of his friends there found his style of drinking unacceptable. ![]() Career īehan, like many fellow prisoners, had written a good deal while confined, and after his release he tried, with limited success, to put his illegal activities behind him and establish himself as a writer. During the remainder of his life he was to find himself in police cells on several occasions, mostly as a consequence of drunken disorder. Fortunate not to be condemned to death, he was sentenced to 14 years' penal servitude, of which he served less than 5 – in Mountjoy gaol, Arbour Hill military detention barracks, and the Curragh camp – before being released in a general amnesty. (The governor, Cyril Alfred Joyce, was one of the earliest to recognise Behan's linguistic virtuosity and to be won over by his charm.) īehan was deported to Ireland in November 1941 but within 6 months he fired shots at policemen in Dublin in circumstances that combined terror and ineptitude and recalled his invasion of England. He was held for some months in Walton gaol and then, because of his age, sentenced to 3 years' Borstal detention, most of which he spent in Hollesley Bay and most of which he enjoyed. In November 1939, without the sanction of his superiors, he travelled to Liverpool, where he was quickly arrested and found in possession of explosive devices. Īt the age of 8 he joined Na Fianna, the junior wing of the IRA, to which he graduated at the age of 16, despite the misgivings of those who considered him too flamboyant for covert operations. Though he was occasionally employed as a painter, his ambition was to be a writer. ![]() ![]() In 1937 he was apprenticed to his father's trade and took a course in Bolton St. In 1928 he attended St Vincent's School in North William St., and in 1934 changed to St Canice's CBS on the North Circular Road. (Kathleen had been married to Jack Furlong, a 1916 veteran who died of influenza in 1918, leaving his widow with 2 sons, Sean and Rory.) įrom childhood Brendan displayed an extraordinary talent for oral entertainment and a commensurate appetite for applause. Hospital, Dublin, the eldest of 5 children of Frank Behan, a house painter then imprisoned as a republican, and Kathleen (Kearney), sister of Peadar Kearney (author of ‘The soldier's song’, which would become the Irish national anthem). Behan was born 9 February 1923 in Holles St.
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