Brendan Behan Biography and List of Works

Irish author noted for his powerful political views and earthy satire. While not in jail or in pubs, Behan worked in odd jobs and wrote plays and stories that colourfully depicted the life of the ordinary working men. Several of his books were banned in Ireland. Behan spent most of the years from 1939 to 1946 in English and Irish penal institutions on political charges.

"... it was not really the length of sentence that worried me - for I had always believed that if a fellow went into the I.R.A. at all he should be prepared to throw the handle after the hatchet, die dog or shite the licence - but that I'd sooner be with Charlie and Ginger and Browny in Borstal than with my own comrades and countrymen any place else. It seemed a bit disloyal to me, that I should prefer to be with boys from English cities than with my own countrymen and comrades from Ireland's hills and glens."
(from Borstal Boy, 1958)

Brendan Behan was born in Dublin and lived his childhood in the slums of the city. In spite of the surroundings, he did not become an unlettered slum lad, but had an alert and incisive mind. His family on both sides was traditionally anti-British. At Behan's birth, his father was in a British compound because of involvement in the Irish uprising of 1916-1922. Behan attended Catholic schools. He also owed much of his education to his family which was well read, and of strong Republican sympathies. Behan left school at the age of 14 and worked as a house painter. From the age of nine he had served in a youth organization connected with the IRA, and in the late 1930s he was IRA's messenger boy.

In 1939 Behan was arrested on a sabotage mission in England and sentenced to three years in Borstal in a reform school for attempting to blow up a battleship in Liverpool harbour.

After release Behan returned to Ireland, but in 1942 he was sentenced to 14 years for the attempted murder of two detectives. He served at Mountjoy Prison and at the Curragh Military Camp. In 1946 he was released under a general amnesty. He was in prison again in Manchester in 1947, serving a short term for allegedly helping an IRA prisoner to escape. During his years in prison, Behan started to write, mainly short stories in an inventive stylization of Dublin vernacular. In 1952 he was deported to France. Later he lived in Paris and Dublin, writing for Radio Telefis and for the Irish Press.

Behan also sailed intermittently on ships - he had become a certified seaman in 1949. Behan's first play, THE QUARE FELLOW, was based on his prison experiences. It was presented at an avant-garde club in 1956 and gained critical success. The events were set during the twenty-four hours preceding an execution. Behan attacked capital punishment, but also false piety behind public attitudes toward such matters as sex, politics, and religion. His other plays include THE BIG HOUSE (1957) and THE HOSTAGE (1958), written in Gaelic and set in a disreputable Dublin lodging house, owned by a former IRA commander. The play was acclaimed in London, Paris, and New York.

In his dramas Behan used song, dance, and direct addresses to the audience. These methods were typical of the style of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, which staged several of his works. Behan's best-known novel, BORSTAL BOY (1958), drew its material from his experiences in the Liverpool jail and Borstal school. The young narrator moves from rebellious bravado to fear and shame, and finally to greater understanding of himself, and human nature in general.

"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves."

Notoriety and critical attention came to Behan in the mid-1950s and contributed to his downfall and death. His irresolute discipline collapsed into prolonged drinking bouts. Although Behan's best works were lively and filled with insight, his personal problems prevented him from realizing his full potential. A lifelong battle with alcoholism ended his career on March 20th 1964, at the age of 41.

"When I came back to Dublin, I was courtmartialled in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence."
(From The Hostage)

Behan's family: his uncle Peader Kearney was the author of the Irish national anthem, 'Soldier's Song'. Another uncle, P.J. Bourke, managed the Queens Theatre in Dublin, and one of Bourke's sons was the dramatist Seamus de Burca, whose English name is James Bourke. In 1955 Behan married Beatrice French-Salked, a painter and the daughter of a noted Dublin artist.

See other writers born in Dublin: William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett - NOTE: St Brendan (484-577), abbot and traveller, founded monasteries in Ireland and Scotland. The Latin Navigation of St Brendan (c.1050) depicts his legendary voyage to the Hebrides and the Northern Isles, or even Iceland.

For further reading: Beckett and Behan by A. Simpson (1962); My Brother Behan by D. Behan (1964); Brendan Behan by R. Jeffs (1965); Brendan Behan by T.E. Boyle (1969); Brendan by U. O'Connor (1970); The Major Works of Breandan Behan by P. Gerdes (1973); Brendan Behan by R. Porter (1973); My life with Brendan by Beatrice Brendan (1974); The Writings of Brendan Behan by C. Kearney (1977); With Brendan Behan by P. Arthurs (1981); McGraw-Hill Encyclopaedia of World Drama, ed. by Stanley Hochman (1984); Sayings of Brendan Behan (1997, paperback); Encyclopaedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, ed. by Steven R. Serafin (1999, vol. 1); Brendan Behan: A Life by Michael O¨Sullivan (1999)

Books by Brendan Behan