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Brendan Behan Books
The Quare Fellow (1954), An Giall (1958), The Hostage (1958), Richard's Cork Leg, Moving Out, A Garden Party, The Big House , Borstal Boy (1958), Brendan Behan's Island (1962), Hold Your Hour and Have Another (1963), Brendan Behan's New York (1964) , Confessions of an Irish Rebel (1965)
Brendan Behan Links
Brendan Francis Behan (1923-1964)
Site http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/behan.htm
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 colorfully 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. However, his writings are lively, full of humor and do not show much signs of anger or polemical fervour.
Irish Writers Online - Brendan Behan
Site http://www.irishwriters-online.com/brendanbehan.html
Brendan Behan was born in Dublin in 1923. He served in Borstal (juvenile prison) for his activities in the IRA, and his experiences formed the background for his most important work. His published plays are The Quare Fellow, first produced in The Pike Theatre, Dublin (London, Metheun, 1956); Borstal Boy (London, Corgi Books, 1958); The Hostage (Methuen, 1959); The Complete Plays (New York, Grove Press, 1978); and Poems and a Play in Irish (Oldcastle, Gallery Books, 1981). His prose includes Brendan Behan's Island - An Irish Sketchbook (London, Hutchinson, 1962); Brendan Behan's New York (Hutchinson, 1964). His posthumous publications include Hold Your Hour and Have Another (Hutchinson); The Scarperer (Hutchinson); Moving Out and A Garden Party (Proscenium Press); Confessions of an Irish Rebel( Hutchinson, 1965); After the Wake (New York, Devin-Adair,1983); The Letters of Brendan Behan (McGill Queens Univ Press, 1992); The King of Ireland's Son (Orchard Books, 1996); and The Dubbalin Man (A&A Farmar, 1998). He died in Dublin in March 1964.
Dublin Tourism - Brendan Behan
Site http://www.dublintourist.com/literary_dublin/brendan_behan.shtml
Brendan Behan (1923-1964) was born in the Holles Street Hospital in Dublin. Before his becoming a writer he had many different jobs, the most well-known of these being his career as a house-painter. At the age of sixteen he was arrested in Liverpool, England while carrying explosives for the I.R.A. and sentenced to go to "Borstal" (a boys prison) for eighteen months, an experience that would form the basis of his novel "Borstal Boy". After his release he re-joined the Irish Republican Army and was again arrested, receiving a fourteen year sentence for shooting at a policeman. He served only four years.
Brendan Behan - Princess Grace Irish Library
1923-1964; [bapt. Francis, called Brendan; Breandán Ó Beacháin]; b. 9 Feb. Holles St. Hospital, Dublin; son Stephen Behan, a highly literate house-painter, and Kathleen Behan (‘mother of the Behans’), once housemaid to Maud Gonne; also nephew of Peadar Kearney and P. J. (‘Paddy’) Bourke, and hence cousin to Seamus de Burca; raised 13 Russell St.; ed. Sisters of Charity NS, and Brunswick St. Christian Bros.; Mrs Furlong, his mother’s mother-in-law by her first marriage, possessed a ‘ferocious revolutionary outlook’; Behan joined the Fianna youth organisation of the IRA in his teens, 1937, but was discharged for disorderly conduct under influence of drink; contributed patriotic prose and verse to Fianna, The Voice of Ireland, Wolfe Tone Weekly and The United Irishman;
"We are one of the great stocks of Europe. We are the people of Burke; we are the people of Swift, the people of Emmet, the people of Parnell. We have created most of the modern literature of this country. We have created the best of its political intelligence."
W. B. Yeats, speech in the Irish Senate, June 11, 1925
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