Brendan Behan

He married Beatrice Salkeld in 1955 and they had a daughter, Blanaid.

He struggled with alcohol all his life, which led him to suffer from uncontrollable diabetes and a number of seizures. In March 1964, he collapsed at the Harbour Lights bar and died at Meath Hospital, aged 41.

Many of his works have been mentioned time and again in popular culture. He has been mentioned in songs by ‘The Pogues’ such as, ‘Thousands Are Sailing’ and ‘Sea Shanty’. A pub named after Behan is also located in an Irish locality in Boston.

Brendan Francis Behan was born into a working-class family in Dublin, Ireland. His parents, Stephen Behan and Kathleen were ardent supporters of the Irish War.

His love for literature and his political views against the British can be attributed to his mother’s political beliefs and his father’s love for Irish works.

He started drinking from the age of 8, which took a serious toll on his body later on. At the age of 13, he left school and decided to become a house painter.

In 1937, his family moved to a new local authority housing scheme in Crumlin. He then joined the youth organization of the IRA and published his first set of poems and prose in the magazine, ‘Fianna: The Voice of Young Ireland’.

At the age of 16, he joined the IRA and was sent on a mission to London where he was asked to blow up Liverpool docks. He possessed explosives and as a result was arrested and sentenced to three years of prison in a borstal.

Brendan Behan’s prison experiences became the central theme for his writing career. While at Mountjoy Prison, he wrote his first play, ‘The Landlady’ and also began to dabble with other short-stories and prose.

In 1950s, he left Ireland to settle in Paris. It was there that he indulged in alcoholism and started to earn a living by writing pornography.

By the time he returned to Ireland, he ahd attracted a lot of negative attraction due to his drinking habit. However, he soon realized that in order to succeed, he would have to discipline himself.

He started to contribute religiously to ‘The Irish Times’ and other newspapers. Additionally, his work, ‘The Leaving Party’ was even broadcast on radio.

In 1954, he earned his first major breakthrough with his play, ‘The Quare Fellow’. The play became so popular that it ran for 6 months. Two years later, it opened at the illustrious, Theatre Royal Stratford East.

‘The Quare Fellow’, produced in 1954, was his first play set in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin. It was a critical success and premiered at a number of theaters around Europe, running for six weeks. It also debuted at the Circle in the Square Theater in New York in 1958.

‘Borstal Boy’, an autobiographical book, published in 1958, enjoyed immense success. The work recounts his experiences at Borstal as a boy. Later, it was also adapted by Frank McMahon and was staged in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. A film adaptation, ‘Borstal Boy’ by Peter Sheridan was also made in 2000.