Brendan Behan (1923–64,) fully Brendan Francis Aidan Behan, was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright who wrote in both English and Irish. Distinguished for his earthy satire and authoritative political commentary, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest Irish writers of all time.
Born in Dublin, Behan was infamous for his riotous lifestyle. He left school at 14 to become a house painter, and soon joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA.) In 1939, he was sentenced to three years in a borstal youth prison for attempting to destroy a Liverpool shipyard and, soon after his release, was given 14 years by a Dublin military court for the attempted murder of two detectives. He was freed by a general amnesty in 1946, but was in prison again in Manchester in 1947 and was deported in 1952.
In prison, Behan took it upon himself to learn to speak Irish from fellow IRA detainees and read voraciously. His first play, The Quare Fellow (1954; movie, 1962,) baldly embellished the prison atmosphere before a hanging. His high-spirited Irish wit, enlivened with balladry and bawdry and a talent for fanciful caricature, found scope in his next play, The Hostage (1958, first produced in Irish as An Giall.) This style was also manifest in the autobiographical novel, Borstal Boy (1958,) and in Brendan Behan’s Island (1963.)
Behan wrote for radio, published poems in Irish, and short stories in English. An alcoholic from childhood, Behan he prematurely in a diabetic coma in a Dublin hospital.
Behan’s brother, the songwriter Dominic Behan, wrote the biography My Brother Brendan (1965.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Brendan Behan
Failure at a task may be the result of having tackled it at the wrong time.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Failures, Mistakes
There’s no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.
—Brendan Behan
If you have a talent, use it in every which way possible. Don’t hoard it. Don’t dole it out like a miser. Spend it lavishly like a millionaire intent on going broke.
—Brendan Behan
Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: The Future, Anxiety, Fear, Tomorrow, Aspirations
The prospect of success in achieving our most cherished dream is not without its terrors. Who is more deprived and alone than the man who has achieved his dream?
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Accomplishment, Success, Success & Failure
Men will always delight in a woman whose voice is lined with velvet.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Women
At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one’s lost self.
—Brendan Behan
Topics: Loneliness
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Oscar Wilde Irish Poet, Playwright
William Butler Yeats Irish Poet
Oliver Goldsmith Anglo-Irish Novelist, Poet
James Joyce Irish Novelist
Elizabeth Bowen Irish Novelist
Sheridan Le Fanu Irish Novelist
George William Russell Irish Author
Jonathan Swift Irish Satirist
George Bernard Shaw Irish Playwright
Joyce Cary English Novelist