Flann O'Brien

Flann O'Brien was the best known pseudonym of Brian O'Nolan (born in Strabane, County Tyrone in Ireland on October 5, 1911) who also published under the name Myles na gCopaleen. He was a twentieth century Irish satirist and humorist of the nationalist tradition.

Early Writings

O'Nolan wrote prodigiously during his years as a student at University College Dublin, contributing to the student magazine Comhthrom Féinne under various guises, in particular the pseudonym 'Brother Barnabas'. Significantly, he composed a story during this same period entitled "Scenes in a Novel (probably posthumous) by Brother Barnabas", which anticipates many of the ideas and themes later to be found in his novel At Swim-Two-Birds. In it, the putative author of the story finds himself in riotous conflict with his characters, who are determined to follow their own paths regardless of the author's design. For example, the villain of the story, one Carruthers McDaid, intended by the author as the lowest form of scoundrel, "meant to sink slowly to absolutely the last extremeties of human degradation", instead ekes out a modest living selling cats to elderly ladies and becomes a covert church-goer without the author's consent. Meanwhile, the story's hero, Shaun Svoolish, chooses a comfortable, bourgeois life rather than romance and heroics:

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'I may be a prig,' he replied, 'but I know what I like. Why can't I marry Bridie and have a shot at the Civil Service?'

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'Railway accidents are fortunately rare,' I said finally, 'but when they happen they are horrible. Think it over.'

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In 1934 O'Brien and his student friends founded a short-lived magazine called Blather. The writing here, though clearly bearing the marks of youthful bravado, again somewhat anticipates O'Brien's later work, in this case his Cruiskeen Lawn column as Myles na gCopaleen:

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"Blather is here. As we advance to make our bow, you will look in vain for signs of servility or of any evidence of a desire to please. We are an arrogant and depraved body of men. We are as proud as bantams and as vain as peacocks."

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"Blather doesn't care. A sardonic laugh escapes us as we bow, cruel and cynical hounds that we are. It is a terrible laugh, the laugh of lost men. Do you get the smell of porter?"

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