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.

Journalism

As Myles na gCopaleen, O'Nolan published a regular column entitled "Cruiskeen Lawn" in The Irish Times, usually in English, but sometimes in Irish, sometimes in Latin and sometimes in a strange English-Irish hybrid of his own invention.

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The columns introduce a regular set of characters, such as the "PLAIN PEOPLE OF IRELAND," who periodically interrupt Myles' flights of fancy to demand clarification or explanation; the poets Keats and Chapman, whose adventures always end in an elaborate pun; "the Brother," and "the Da". Numerous ingenious inventions and schemes for the improvement of the Irish nation are described.

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These pieces have been collected into a number of books such as The Best of Myles and Further Cuttings from Cruiskeen Lawn (an example of bilingual humour, which O'Nolan often used. His pen name means "Myles of the little horse," and Cruiskeen Lawn means "the small full glass").

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Having satirised a government minister in the column, O'Nolan was forcibly retired from the civil service and due to his spiralling alcoholism never regained the heights of his early work, dying from cancer on April 1, 1966 at the age of 54.

Related Topics:
April 1 - 1966

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O'Nolan had been one of the first proponents of the study of Irish, and yet as a newspaper columnist he consistently satirized Irish nationalists for their zeal. Some of the characters introduced in the "Cruiskeen Lawn" column (in particular The Brother) are explained in The Hard Life.

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Flann O'Brien's writing is sufficiently creative that he counts as a major figure in twentieth century Irish literature. Like others whose primary output was periodical, his work has only recently been receiving wide attention from literary scholars.

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