Who is Flann O’Brien? Well you may ask, for Flann O’Brien was not a stand up comedian, nor was his name Flann O’Brien.
In fact, his name is one of the more enigmatic and debated aspects of this writer and satirist’s life. He was christened Brian O Nuallain but has become known by the more anglicised version Brian O’Nolan. The fifth of twelve children, Brian was born in County Tyrone in 1911. Even though he went on to become one of the great writers of English of the twentieth century, Brian spoke only Gaelic until the age of six. A Civil Servant in Ireland, he was not permitted to publish written work under his own name so he wrote his novels under the adopted the pen name Flann O’Brien and, for the regular column he wrote for the Irish Times (much of which can now be found published in book form), he chose the moniker Myles na Gopaleen (translated to English as ‘Myles of the little horses’).
Flann O’Brien (the name by which he is best known) was a huge fan of James Joyce who influenced his work intrinsically, with Flann creating a character in one of his six novels, The Dalkey Archives, who was an alternate, ageing version of James Joyce. Infamously, the older James Joyce, in his declining years, avidly read Flann O’Brien’s work with a magnifying glass, At Swim Two Birds being the last novel that Joyce ever read. Upon reading it James Joyce described Flann O’Brien as “a real writer with a true comic spirit”.
At Swim Two Birds is popularly thought to be Flann O’Brien’s most accomplished work and one of the great precursors to post modernist literature. The mutual respect and adoration between James Joyce and Flann O’Brien shines through in this novel, displaying the complexity and absurdity of Flann O’Brien’s work which earned him so many comparisons to Joyce through the years.
His use of language was also revolutionary, particularly in his column Cruiskeen Lawn (‘Little Brimming Jug’ in English), employing English, Latin, Gaelic and a strange hybrid of English and Gaelic which became kind of unique language of his own invention. His humour was of type that was deliberately subversive, undermining and parodying the establishment & religion whilst targeting the ‘ordinary’ folk of Ireland with an incisive perception which was both telling and empathetic.
An alcoholic, Flann O’Brien died from cancer at the age of fifty four in Dublin on the first of April, 1966. He never found the success he so dearly deserved during his lifetime but has posthumously found recognition amongst academics as one of the most important writers of the twentieth century.
Unsubstantiated Squirrel Fact #763 by L. Farquar
Baby Squirrel don’t eat for the first 24 days of their lives. Many baby squirrels die of malnutrition during this very risky time of their tiny lives.