Queer Places:
Chelsea Hotel, 222 W 23rd St, New York, NY 10011
Harkin's Bar & Bistro, The Old Harbour, 6 Echlin St, Ushers, Dublin 8, Co. Dublin, D08 HX3K, Ireland
Glasnevin Cemetery
Glasnevin, County Dublin, Ireland
Brendan Behan Pub, 378 Centre St, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Palace
Bar, 21 Fleet St, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, D02 H950, Ireland
Brendan Francis Aidan Behan[1] (christened Francis Behan)[2] (9 February 1923 – 20 March 1964) was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist and playwright who wrote in both English and Irish. He was named by Irish Central as one of the greatest Irish writers of all time.[3]
The family of Brendan Behan claim that he was bisexual all of his life, but he kept it quiet for his families sake. Brendan Behan: A Life by Michael O'Sullivan (1997) leaves little room for doubt that Behan was bisexual and Michael O'Sullivan talked to an Irishman domiciled in America, Peter Arthurs, who at the age of 23 was his lover in New York. Prisons and boarding schools, it has been said, are two forcing-grounds for homosexuality, and probably Behan's Borstal years were decisive in this sense. But from quite early on, a certain erotic tug towards his own sex seems to have been marked in both his behaviour and his writings - for instance, his lifelong fascination with
Oscar Wilde, and the sympathetic portrait of a homosexual in The Quare Fellow.
Behan was born in the inner city of Dublin at Holles Street Hospital on 9 February 1923 into an educated working-class family.[7] His mother had two sons, Sean Furlong and Rory (Roger Casement Furlong), from her first marriage to compositor Jack Furlong; after Brendan was born she had three more sons and a daughter: Seamus, Brian, Dominic and Carmel.[8]
They lived in a house on Russell Street near Mountjoy Square owned by his grandmother, Christine English, who owned a number of properties in the area. Brendan's father Stephen Behan, a house painter who had been active in the Irish War of Independence, read classic literature to the children at bedtime from sources including the works of Zola, Galsworthy and Maupassant; his mother, Kathleen, took them on literary tours of the city. She remained politically active all her life and was a personal friend of the Irish republican Michael Collins. Brendan Behan wrote a lament to Collins, The Laughing Boy, at the age of thirteen. The title was from the affectionate nickname Mrs Behan gave to Collins. Kathleen published her autobiography, Mother of All The Behans, a collaboration with her son Brian, in 1984.
Behan's uncle Peadar Kearney wrote the Irish national anthem The Soldier's Song.[7] His brother Dominic was also a renowned songwriter, best known for the song The Patriot Game;[9] His brother Brian was a prominent radical political activist and public speaker, actor, author, and playwright.[10][11][12]
A biographer, Ulick O'Connor, recounts that one day, at age eight, Brendan was returning home with his granny and a crony from a drinking session. A passer-by remarked, "Oh, my! Isn't it terrible, ma'am, to see such a beautiful child deformed?" "How dare you," said his granny. "He's not deformed; he's just drunk!"
Behan left school at 13 to follow in his father's footsteps as a house painter.[7]
An Irish republican and a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army, Behan
became a member of the IRA's youth organisation Fianna Éireann at the age of fourteen. Behan eventually joined the IRA at sixteen, which led to his serving time in a borstal youth prison in the United Kingdom and he was also imprisoned in Ireland. During this time, he took it upon himself to study and he became a fluent speaker of the Irish language. Subsequently released from prison as part of a general amnesty given by the Fianna Fáil government in 1946, Behan moved between homes in Dublin, Kerry and Connemara, and also resided in Paris for a time.
In 1954, Behan's first play The Quare Fellow, was produced in Dublin. It was well received; however, it was the 1956 production at Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop in Stratford, London, that gained Behan a wider reputation. This was helped by a famous drunken interview on BBC television with Malcolm Muggeridge. In 1958, Behan's play in the Irish language An Giall had its debut at Dublin's Damer Theatre. Later, The Hostage, Behan's English-language adaptation of An Giall, met with great success internationally. Behan's autobiographical novel, Borstal Boy, was published the same year and became a worldwide best-seller.
Behan married horticultural illustrator for The Irish Times Beatrice ffrench Salkeld, daughter of the painter Cecil ffrench Salkeld, in February 1955. (Naturally, Dublin wits nicknamed the family the ffrench Behans.) A daughter, Blanaid, was born in 1963, shortly before Behan's death.[7]
Behan had a one-night stand in 1961 with Valerie Danby-Smith,[24][25]
who was Ernest Hemingway's personal assistant and later married his son,
Dr Gregory Hemingway.[26] Nine months later, Valerie gave birth to a son
she named Brendan. Brendan Behan died two years later, having never met
his son.[25]
By the early 1960s, Behan reached the peak of his fame. He spent increasing amounts of time in New York City, famously declaring, "To America, my new found land: The man that hates you hates the human race."[4] By this point, Behan began spending time with people including Harpo Marx and Arthur Miller and was followed by a young Bob Dylan.[5] However, this newfound fame did nothing to aid his health or his work, with his alcoholism and diabetes medical conditions continuing to deteriorate: Brendan Behan's New York and Confessions of an Irish Rebel received little praise. He briefly attempted to combat this by a dry stretch while staying at Chelsea Hotel in New York, and in 1961 was admitted to Sunnyside Private Hospital,[6] an institution for the treatment of alcoholism in Toronto, but he once again turned back to alcohol and relapsed back into active alcoholism.
Behan died on 20 March 1964 after collapsing at the Harbour Lights bar
(now Harkin's Harbour Bar) in Echlin Street, Dublin. He was transferred
to the Meath Hospital in central Dublin, where he died, aged 41. At his
funeral he was given a full IRA guard of honour, which escorted his
coffin. It was described by several newspapers as the biggest Irish
funeral of all time after those of Michael Collins and Charles Stewart
Parnell.[22] Following his death, his widow had a son, Paudge Behan,
with Cathal Goulding, Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army and
the Official IRA.[23]
A pub named after Behan is located in the historically Irish Jamaica Plain section of Boston, Massachusetts. A bronze sculpture of the writer stands outside the Palace Bar on Dublin's Fleet Street.[27]
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