1912-1966 [var. 1911]; [Brian Nolan; usually Brian O’Nolan, or Ó Nualláin; pseud. ‘Myles na Gopaleen’]; b. 5 Oct., No. 15, Bowling Green, Strabane, Co. Tyrone; son of Michael Ó Nualláin (d.1937) and Agnes, née Gormley, both from Omagh who met and married in Strabane, where Michael taught Irish with the Gaelic League; br. of Mícheál, Niall, Ciarán and two sisters; learnt Irish at home; also lived in Scotland, Cappencur (nr. Tullamore) and Dublin; his father opted to join the Irish Free State Customs Service and moved to Dublin as a Commissioner, 1923; settled in rented house at 25, Herbert Place; entered 4th form at Christian Brothers’, Synge St., then Blackrock College and UCD, where he was active in the L&H and narrowly lost auditorship to Vivion de Valera; and contrib. to Comhthrom Féinne, ed. by Niall Sheridan (May 1931-May 1935); encountered Heine’s short ‘student’ novel Die Harzreise on his college syllabus and also the Conspectus of the Arts and Natural Sciences - said by Niall Sheridan to have actually existed; completed UCD MA thesis on Irish Nature Poetry in the form of an anthology-treatise (‘Nádúir-Fhilíocht na Gaedhilge: Trachtas maraon le Duanaire’, UCD August 1934), as Brian Ua Núallain; launched Blather with his brother Ciarán, running through 6 issues (Aug. 1934-Jan. 1935), contributing to it under various pseuds. (e.g., ‘Brother Barnabas); spent part of a year in Germany; entered Civil Service, 1935, rising to principal officer for town planning before retiring under pressure, 19 Feb. 1953; At Swim-Two-Bird (19 April, 1939; reissued 1960), an immediate critical success though soon dampened by war concerns; commenced writing his ‘Cruiskeen Lawn’ column for Irish Times for R. M. Smyllie over pseud. ‘Myles na gCopaleen’ after the character in Bouccicault (4 Oct. 1940-1 April 1960), for the first year in Irish and afterwards in English, and featuring ‘the Brother’, et al., in a series of raids on solecisms and pretentions everywhere, especially in the new governmental class; unsuccessfully submitted The Third Policeman to sundry publishers and practised various subterfuges to explain their lack interest (viz., MS lost in a pub, &c.); wrote a play, Faustus Kelly (Abbey 25 Jan. 1943), and then a another, based on that by Karel Capek which ran five nights at the Gate Theatre, The Insect Play (also 1943); contrib. article ‘Drink and Time in Dublin’ to the first issue of Irish Writing (1946), as ‘Myles na gCopaleen’; contrib. to Kavanagh’s Weekly (April 1952-14 June 1952), also as ‘Myles na gCopaleen’; issued An Béal Bocht (1941), being a parody of Gaelgeoir [language-revival] and attitudes reflected in the autobiographies of Tomás Ó Criomthain [O’Crohan], Séamus Ó Grianna, et al., here with characters such as the ubiquitous James O’Donnell, Bonaparte O’Coonassa, Osborne O’Loonassa (a tyrannical schoolmaster), and so on; m. Evelyn McDonnell, 2 Dec. 1948; moved from parental home at Avoca Tce., Blackrock, to nearby Merrion Ave., and then to Belmont Ave., adjacent to Morehampton Rd., Donnybrook; final address in Stillorgan; published stories and articles including ‘The Martyr’s Crown’ (Envoy 1950); lambasted ‘Titostalinatarianism’ of Tostal Festival, 1953; contrib. ‘A Bash in the Tunnel’ to "James Joyce Special Number" of Envoy (April 1951); made the first Bloomsday pilgrimage with John Ryan, Patrick Kavanagh, and Anthony Cronin, 16 June 1954; denounced the plaque on birth-place of Oscar Wilde commemorating him as Irish in ‘Cruiskeen Lawn’, 1954; commenced writing for provincial papers, contributing a ‘A Weekly Look Around’ to Southern Star (15 Jan. 1955-3 Nov. 1956), as ‘John James Doe’; contrib. ‘Bones of Contention’ aka ‘George Knowall’s Peepshow’ [column] to Nationalist and Leinster Times (1960-1966); contrib. ‘De Me’ to New Ireland (QUB 1964), as ‘Myles na Gopaleen’, also ‘The Saint and I’ to Manchester Guardian (19 Jan. 1966), as ‘Flann O’Brien’; issued The Hard Life (1961), sub-titled ‘An Exegesis of Squalor’; An Béal Bocht reissued as The Poor Mouth (1964), in a translation by Patrick Power; issued The Dalkey Archive (1965), incorporating material recuperated from The Third Policeman and soon afterwards dramatised by Hugh Leonard as The Saints Go Cycling In (1965); wrote sporadically for Radio Teilifís Éireann; TV dramas incl. ‘The Dead Spit of Kelly’, adaptation of the story ‘Two in One’ (pub. in The Bell); ‘Flight’, and ‘The Time Freddy Retired’; also scripted ‘O’Dea’s Yer Man’, James Plunkett as director supplying a needful rewrite before transmission; left ‘Slattery’s Sago Saga’ unfinished at the time of his death on 1 April 1966; The Third Policeman (1967) was issued posthumously with an epigraph from Shakespeare [‘… let’s reason with the worst that may befall’], and published in America as Hell Goes Round and Round; survived by Mícheál [Ó Nualláin] and Niall [O’Nolan], both living into the late 1990s; a third brother, Ciarán, serves as a memorialist; papers of Flann O’Brien are held at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Centre (Texas Univ., Austin). NCBE DIW DIB DIH DIL OCEL FDA OCIL
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Novels, At Swim-Two-Birds (London: Longmans, Green & Co.; reiss. London: MacGibbon & Kee 1960; rep. Penguin, 1967, 1977, 1986 &c.), French trans. as Kermesse irlandaise (Paris: Gallimard 1964); An Béal Bocht (Dublin: An Press Naisiúnta 1941; Dolmen Press 1964), and Do., translated by Patrick Power as The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life (London: Hart-Davis 1964, MacGibbon & Kee 1973), ill. Seán O’Sullivan; Faustus Kelly: A Play in Three Acts (Dublin: Cahill 1943); The Hard Life: An Exegesis of Squalor (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1961), 157pp., dw ill. Seán O’Sullivan; Four Square Books 1964; Picador 1976; Flamingo 1994, &c.), trans. in French as Une vie de chien (Paris: Gallimard 1972); The Dalkey Archive (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1964); The Third Policeman (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1967), and Do., rep. edn. (Harmondsworth Penguin 1986) [with copy of O’Brien’s letter to William Saroyan, 14 Feb. 1940], and Do., rep. edn. (London: HarperCollins 1993); Kevin O’Nolan, ed., The Best of Myles: A Selection from ‘Cruiskeen Lawn’ (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1968; Grafton 1987; Paladin 1990); Stories and Plays, intro. by Claud Clockburn (London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon 1973); Anne Clissmann and David Powell, eds., ‘A Flann O’Brien-Myles na Gopaleen Portfolio’, in Journal of Irish Literature III, 1 (Delaware: Jan. 1974); Kevin O’Nolan, ed., Further Cuttings from Cruiskeen Lawn’ (London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon 1976); The Various Lives of Keats and Chapman,[and] The Brother, ed. and intro. Benedict Kiely (London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon 1976); The Hair of the Dogma: A Further Selection from ‘Cruiskeen Lawn’ (Hart-Davis &c 1977); Stephen Jones, ed., A Flann O’Brien Reader (NY: Viking 1978); Martin Green, ed, Myles Away from Dublin (Granada 1985).
Dramatic Works, Robert Tracy, ed., Rhapsody in Stephen’s Green: The Insect Play (Dublin: Lilliput Press 1994), 88pp. [one act prev. held at Illinois Univ.; whole text rediscovered in Hilton Edward’s prompt copy of 1943].
Reprints & Collections, At Swim-Two-Bird (London: Jonathan Cape 1939; reiss. MacGibbon & Kee 1960; Penguin 1991); The Hard Life (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1961; Paladin 1992), and Do. (Scribner/Townhouse 2003), 170pp.; The Dalkey Archive (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1964; Paladin 1990); The Third Policeman (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1967; Paladin 1993); The Best of Myles (London: MacGibbon & Kee 1968; Paladin 1993); An Béal Bocht [1941] (Dublin: Dolmen Press 1964), translated by Patrick Power as The Poor Mouth (London: Hart-Davis; MacGibbon & Kee 1973; Paladin 1993); Stories and Plays (London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon 1973; Paladin 1991); Hair of the Dogma, ed. Kevin O’Nolan (London: Grafton 1989; Paladin 1993); John Wyse Jackson, ed., Flann O’Brien at War: Myles na gCopaleen 1940-1945 (Duckworth 2000), 191pp.; The Various Lives of Keats and Chapman [and] The Brother (Dublin & NY: Scribner/Townhouse 2003), 188pp.
Miscellaneous, three documentary articles for The Bell in 1940 [dog-tracks dancehalls, and pubs]; autobiographical notice, in Twentieth Century Authors (1934); ‘De Me’, an autobiographical piece, appeared in New Ireland [QUB student mag.] (March 1964); ‘Can a Saint Hit Back’, in The Guardian (19 Jan. 1966) [autobiographical and based on idea attributable to St Augustine]; Myles na Gopaleen writing on a Rouault painting in The Irish Times (1942; rep. in Fintan Cullen, Ed., Sources in Irish Art: A Reade, Cork UP 2000); ‘Editorial Note’, in Envoy: An Irish Review of Literature and Art [“James Joyce” Issue], 5, 7 (April 1951), pp.6-11 [rep. [with variations, as infra] as ‘A Bash in the Tunnel’ in John Ryan, ed., A Bash in the Tunnel: James Joyce by the Irish (Brighton: Clifton Books 1970), pp.15-20.] Note also: As Myles Na gCopaleen, ed., [sole] anthology of Irish Times “Cruiskeen Lawn” column (1943).
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Contributions to Comhtrom Féinne [later The National Student, UCD] (May 1931-May 1935) [sel. in Myles before Myles, 1985]; Blather, Dublin [anon. and var. pseuds.] (August 1934-January 1935) [sel. in Myles before Myles, 1985]; ‘Cruiskeen Lawn’ by Myles na gCopaleen/Gopaleen, The Irish Times (4 October 1940-1 April 1966); ‘Drink and Time in Dublin’ by Myles na gCopaleen, article, Irish Writing, 1 (1946) [rep. in Vivian Mercier and David H. Greene, 1000 Years of Irish Prose (NY: Devin-Adair 1952); Kavanagh’s Weekly, Dublin [as Myles na gCopaleen] (April 1952-14 June 1952) [rep. in Kavanagh’s Weekly, Kildare: Goldsmith Press 1981]; ‘A Weekly Look Around’ by John James Doe, Southern Star, Skibbereen (15 Jan. 1955-3 Nov. 1956); ‘Bones of Contention’/’George Knowall’s Peepshow’ by George Knowall The Nationalist and Leinster Times, Carlow (1960-1966) [sel. in 15 Myles Away from Dublin]; ‘De Me’ New Ireland (QUB New Ireland Soc., March 1964) [as Myles na Gopaleen]; ‘The Saint and 1’, Manchester Guardian, 19 Jan. 1966) [as Flann O’Brien].
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Contributions & reviews, ‘After Hours’, and review of Frank O’Connor, Book of Ireland [rep. edn.], Threshold, 21 (1967); also contribs. to Ireland Today (1938); Comthrom Féinne (Summer 1931-May 1935), incl. Brother Barnabas, ‘scenes from a novel’ (May 1934), rep. Journal of Irish Literature, III, 1 (Jan. 1974); Blather, Nov. 1934, rep. Journal of Irish Literature 1974; The Harp, 1960-65; Envoy, III, 12 (Nov. 1950), on ‘Baudelaire and Kavanagh’; The Irish Times; Nonplus (1959); New Ireland (1964); Irish Writing, 20-21 (Nov. 1952), ‘Donabate’, rep. Journal of Irish Literature (Jan. 1974); Kavanagh’s Weekly, I, 3 (26 April 1952), ‘I Don't You’; also 'Letter to the Editor', Kavanagh's Weekly, 1, 10 (14 June 1952), and ‘Motor Economics’, 1, 7 (24 March 1952); Irish Housewife’s Annual (1963/64); Hibernia (Sept. 1960); Irish Writing, 10 (Jan. 1950), review of L. A. G. Strong, The Sacred River; Irish Writing, 11 (May 1950), review of Patrick Campbell, ‘A Long Drink of Cold Water’ [?source]; ‘The New Phoenix’, Kavanagh’s Weekly, 1, 4 (3 May 1952); extract from The Poor Mouth, in Fiction, III, 1 (1974); journalism in Evening Mail (Oct. 1961); ‘Three Poems from the Irish’, Lace Curtain, 4 (Summer 1971); ‘Two in One’, The Bell XIX, 8 (July 1954), 30-34; rep. Journal of Irish Literature, III, 1 (Jan. 1974); as John James Doe, ‘A Weekly Look Around’, Southern Star [Skibbereen] (15 Jan. 1955-27 Oct. 1965); as George Knowall, ‘George Knowall’s Peepshow, in Nationalist and Leinster Times [Carlow] early/mid 1960); also Manchester Guardian, ‘The Cud of Memory,’ (1965); trans. Brinsley MacNamara, play, Margaret Gillan [as Mairead Gillan] (Dublin 1953);
Manuscripts & Criticism: The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin holds two boxes of the papers of Flann O’Brien. Details: Purchase and gift, 1965, 1970, and 1989 (R2707, R4815, and G8215); Open for research; processed by Bob Taylor, 1997; RLIN Record ID: TXRC97-A18. (See further under Notes, infra.)
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Kate O’Brien, ‘Fiction’ [review of At Swim], The Spectator (14 April 1939), pp.645-46.
Anthony West, ‘New Novels’ [incl. review of At Swim], New Statesman (17 June 1939), pp.940, 942 [rep. as ‘Inspired Nonsense’ in Rüdiger Imhof, Alive-alive O!, 1985].
Nigel Heseltine, ‘At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien’, Wales (1939), pp.308-09.
Thomas Hogan [pseudonym of Thomas Wood, of the Dept. of External Affairs. aka ‘Thersites' The Irish Times], ‘Myles na gCopaleen', The Bell, XIII, 2 (1946), pp.126-40 [a witty ad hominem attack].
John Jordan, ‘The Saddest Book Ever to Come Out of Ireland’ [review of At Swim], Hibernia, 24, 46 (5 Aug. 1960), p.5.
Vivian Mercier, The Irish Comic Tradition, Chap. 2, ‘Fantasy, Humour and Ribaldry’ (London: Souvenir Press 1962), pp.11-46.
Risteárd Ó Glaisne, ‘Scríbhneoireach Ghaeilge Myles na gCopaleen’, Comhar, 21, 4 (Aibréan 1962), pp.16-19.
Vivian Mercier, The Irish Comic Tradition, Chap. 2, ‘Fantasy, Humour and Ribaldry' (London: Souvenir Press 1962), pp.11-46.
Martín Ó Cadhain, ‘Leabhar atá as Aora Móra Phróis na Gaeilge’, Feasta (Aibréan 1965), pp.25-26.
John Jordan, ‘Dublin Theatre Festival: Flann O’Brien’s Fantasy’, Hibernia, 29, 11 ([?] Nov. 1965), p.17.
Tom McIntyre, ‘The Dalkey Archive’, Dublin Magazine, 4, 1 (Spring 1965), p.86.
Seamus Kelly, ‘Brian O’Nolan: Scholar, Satirist and Wit’, in The Irish Times (2 April 1966), rep. Journal of Irish Literature, Jan. 1974.
Mervyn Wall, ‘The Man Who Hated Only Cods', in The Irish Times (2 April 1966).
Niall Sheridan, ‘Brian, Flann, and Myles’, in The Irish Times (2 April 1966) [rep. O’Keeffe, ed., Portraits, 1973, pp.32-33].
Frank McGuinness [review of The Third Policeman], ‘Books’, Queen (1 Sept. 1967), pp.10-11.
Patrick Boyle, ‘Books We Enjoyed Most in ’67’, Hibernia, 32, 1 ([?] Jan. 1968), p.21.
Thomas Kilroy, ‘Fiction’ [review of The Third Policeman] in Irish University Review, V, 1 (Spring 1968), p.112-17.
Patrick Boyle, ‘At Whim-Few Surds’ [review of The Best of Myles], in Hibernia, 32, 10 ([?] October 1968), p.68.
Bernard Benstock, ‘The Three Faces of Brian Nolan', Éire-Ireland, 3, 3 (Autumn 1968), pp.51-65.
Del Ivan Janik, ‘Flann O’Brien: The Novelist as Critic', Éire-Ireland, 4, 4 (Winter 1969), pp.56-63.
Benedict Kiely, ‘The Whores on the Half-Doors, or an Image of the Irish Writer’, in Owen Dudley Edwards, ed., Conor Cruise O’Brien Introduces Ireland, 1969, pp.148-61 [rep. in A Raid into Dark Corners, Cork UP, 1991].
William David Powell, The English Writings of Flann O’Brien [PhD dissertation] (S. Ill., Univ., May 1970) [Diss. Abst. 31 3560 A].
Ruth A. Roberts, ‘At Swim-Two-Birds and the Novel as Self-evident Sham’, Éire-Ireland, 6, 2 (1971), pp.76-97.
David Powell, ‘An Annotated Biliography of Myles na gCopaleen’s "Cruiskeen Lawn" Commentaries on James Joyce’, James Joyce Quartlerly, 9, 1 (Fall 1971), pp.50-62.
Thomas Redshaw Dillon, ‘O’Nolan’s First Limbo: On the Imaginative Structure of At Swim-Two-Birds’, Dublin Magazine, 9, 2 (Winter/Spring 1971/72), pp.89-99.
John Wain, ‘“To Write for My Own Race”: The Fiction of Flann O'Brien', in A House for the Truth: Critical Essays (London: Macmillan 1972), pp.67-104 [first pub. in Encounter, July 1967, pp.71-85].
Thomas Kilroy, ‘Teller of Tales’, Times Literary Supplement (17 March 1972), p.301.
Timothy O'Keeffe, ed., Myles: Portraits of Brian O'Nolan (London: Martin, Brian & O'Keeffe 1973) [contents listed below].
Ciarán Ó Nualláin, Óige an Déarthár .i. Myles na gCopaleen (Baile atha Cliath: Foilseacháin Náisiúnta Teo. 1973).
Breandán Ó Conaire, ‘Flann O'Brien, An Béal Bocht, and Other Irish Matters', Irish University Review 3, 2 (1973), pp.121-40.
J. C. C. Mays, ‘Brian O’Nolan and James Joyce on Art and on Life’, James Joyce Quarterly, XI, 3 (1974), pp.238-56.
Anthony Cronin, ‘An Extraordinary Achievement’, in The Irish Times (5 Dec. 1975), and ‘After at Swim’, in The Irish Times (12 Dec. 1975).
James MacKillop, ‘The Figure of Finn MacCool: A Study of Celtic Archetypes in the Works of James Macpherson, Flann O’Brien, James Joyce, and Others’ [PhD] (Syracuse Univ. 1975).
Denis Johnston, ‘Myles na Gopaleen’ in Ronsley, ed., Myth and Reality in Irish Literature (1977).
John M. Kelly, ‘Matchless Ashplant’ [review of ‘Hair of the Dogma’], in Hibernia (28 Oct. 1977), p.25.
Rüdiger Imhof [review of] ‘Hair of the Dogma’, in Irish University Review, 9, 1 (Spring 1979), pp.187-89.
N. Mellamphy, ‘Aestho-autogamy and the Anarchy of Imagination: Flann O’Brien’s Theory of Fiction in At Swim-Two-Birds’, in Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, IV, 1 (June 1978), pp.8-25.
Declan Kiberd, ‘Writers in Quarantine?: The Case for Irish Studies’, Crane Bag, III, 1 (1979), pp.9-21.
Breandán Ó Conaire, ‘Flann O’Brien, An Béal Bocht, and Other Irish Matters’, in Irish University Review, 3, 2 (1973), pp.121-40.
Anne Clissmann & David Powell, eds., ‘A Flann O’Brien Special Number’, Journal of Irish Literature, 3 (January 1974) [see below for listed contents].
J. C. C Mays, ‘Brian O’Nolan and Joyce on Art and on Life’, in James Joyce Quarterly, 11, No. 3 (Spring 1974), pp.238-56.
Danielle Jacquin, ‘Never Apply Your Front Brake First, or Flann O’Brien and the Theme of a Fall’, in Patrick Rafroidi and Maurice Harmon, eds., The Irish Novel in Our Time (Lille, 1975-76), pp.187-97.
John Ryan, ‘The Incomparable Myles’, in Remembering How We Stood: Dublin at the Mid-Century (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1975), pp.127-47.
Rüdiger Imhof, ‘Flann O’Brien: A Checklist’, in Études Irlandaises (Dec. 1979), pp.125-48 [primary & secondary bibls.].
Anne Clissmann, Flann O’Brien: A Biographical and Critical Introduction to His Writing (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1975) [Chap. 4, ‘Bicycles and Eternity', pp.151-81].
Anthony Cronin, Dead as Doornails: A Chronicle of Life (Dublin: Dolmen/Talbot 1976; rep. Oxford Pbks. 1994).
Lorna Sage, ‘Flann O’Brien’, in Douglas Dunn, ed., Two Decades of Irish Writing (1975), pp.197-206.
J. M. Silverthorne, ‘Time, Literature, and Failure: Flann O’Brien’s At Swim Two Birds and The Third Policeman’, Éire-Ireland, 9, 4 (Winter 1976), pp.66-83.
Seán Ó Tuama, ‘Some Highlights of Fiction in Irish’, in Patrick Rafroidi and Maurice Harmon, eds., The Irish Novel in Our Time (Lille Publications de l’Université Lille III 1976), pp.31-47.
Brendan Kennelly, ‘An Béal Bocht’, in John Jordan, ed., The Pleasures of Gaelic Literature (1977), pp.85-96.
Rüdiger Imhof, ‘To Meta-Novelists, Sternesque Elements in Novels by Flann O’Brien’, Anglo-Irish Studies, 4 (1979), pp.59-90.
George O’Brien, ‘O’Brien, Flann’, in James Vinson, ed., Great Writers of the English Language: Novelists and Prose Writers (London: Macmillan 1979), pp.916-18.
Rüdiger Imhof, ’Flann O’Brien: A Checklist’, Études Irlandaises (Dec. 1979), pp.125-48.
Brian Moore, ‘English Fame and Irish Writers’, London Review of Books, 2, 22 (1980), pp.37-43.
Julia Dietrich, ‘Flann O’Brien’s Parody of Transubstantiation in The Dalkey Archive’, Notes on Contemporary Literature, 10, V (1980), pp.5-6.
Alan Warner, ‘Flann O’Brien’, in A Guide to Anglo-Irish Literature (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1981), pp.143-68.
Antony Burgess, ‘Flann O’Brien, A Note’, Études Irelandaises [Univ. de Lille III] No. 7 [n. s.] (December 1982), pp.83-86.
Anthony Cronin, ‘Flann O’Brien: The Flawed Achievement’, in Heritage Now: Irish Literature in the English Language (Dingle: Brandon 1982), pp.203-14.
Bernard Benstock, ‘A Flann for all Seasons’, Irish Renaissance Annual, 3 (1982), pp.15-29.
Hugh Kenner, ‘The Mocker’ [Chap.], in A Colder Eye: The Modern Irish Writers (NY: Knopf 1983), pp.318-28.
Joseph Browne, ‘Flann O’Brien, Post Joyce or Propter Joyce?’, Éire-Ireland, 19, 4 (Winter 1984), pp.148-57.
Eva Wäppling, Four Irish Legendary Figures in ‘At Swim-Two-Birds’: A Study of Flann O’Brien’s use of Finn, Suibhne, the Poooka and the Good Fairy [Uppsala PhD] (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell 1984).
A. C. Partridge, ‘A Trio of Innovators: Joyce, Beckett and Flann O’Brien’, in Language and Society in Anglo-Irish Literature (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1984), pp.314-17.
Charles Kemnitz, ‘Beyond the Zone of the Middle Dimensions, a Relativistic Reading of The Third Policeman’, Irish University Review, 15, 2 (Spring 1985), pp.56-72.
Rüdiger Imhof, ed., Alive-alive O!: Flann O’Brien’s ‘At Swim-Two-Birds’ (Dublin: Wolfhound 1985, 1993).
Augustine Martin, ‘Fable and Fantasy’, in Martin, ed., The Genius of Irish Prose (Cork: Mercier 1985), pp.110-20.
Anthony Cronin, ‘Post Structuralists, Post Modernists, Post Everything: Myles among the Academics’, in The Irish Times (1 April 1986), p.12.
Seamus Deane, ‘Irish Modernism: Fiction’, in A Short History of Irish Literature (London: Hutchinson 1986), pp.193-99.
Marilyn Throne, ‘The Provocative Bicycle of Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman’, Éire-Ireland, 21, 4 (Winter 1986), pp.36-44.
Breandán Ó Conaire, Myles na Gaeilge: Lámhleabhar ar Shaothar Gaeilge Bhrian Ó Nualláin, (Baile Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar Teo. 1986).
Jerry L. Maguire, ‘Teasing After Death, Metatextuality in The Third Policeman’, Éire-Ireland, 16, 2 (Summer 1986), pp.107-21.
David Cohen, ‘James Joyce and the Decline of Flann O’Brien’, Éire-Ireland: Journal of Irish Studies, 22, 2 (Summer 1987), pp.153-60.
Breandán P. Ó h-Eithir, ‘Flann O’Brien and the Big World’, in Wolfgang Zach and Heinz Kosok eds., Literary Interrelations: Ireland, England and the World, Vol. III: National Images and Stereotypes (Tübingen: Guntar Narr Verlag, 1987), pp.207-16.
Peter Costello and P. Van de Kamp, Flann O’Brien: An Illustrated Biography (London: Bloomsbury 1987).
Cathal Ó Háinle, ‘Fionn and Suibhne in At Swim-Two-Birds’, in Hermathena, 142 (Summer 1987), cp.25-30.
James Cahalan, ‘Fantasia, Irish Fabulists 1920-55’ [Chp. 6], The Irish Novel: A Critical History (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1988), pp.220-60.
Anthony Cronin, No Laughing Matter: The Life and Times Of Flann O’Brien (London: Grafton 1989; rep. Paladin 1990); and Do. [rep. edn.], with new intro. (Dublin: New Island Press 2003), 250pp.
Wim Tigges, ‘Ireland and Wonderland, Flann O’Brien’s Third Policeman as Nonsense Novel’, in C. C. Barfoot and Theo D’Haen, eds., The Clash of Ireland: Literary Contrasts and Connections (Amst: Rodopi 1989), pp.195-208.
John Cronin, ‘Flann O’Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds’, in The Anglo-Irish Novel, Vol II (Belfast: Appletree 1990), pp.170-82.
P. L. Henry, ‘The Structure of Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds’, Irish University Review, 20, 1 (Spring 1990), c.p.37.
Earl. G. Ingersoll, ‘Irish Jokes: A Lacanian Reading of Short Stories by James Joyce, Flann O’Brien, and Bryan MacMahon’, Studies in Short Fiction, 2 (Spring 1990): pp.237-45.
Monique Gallagher, Flann O’Brien: Myles from Dublin, pamphlet No. 7 [Princess Grace Lib. Lect. Series, Monaco] (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1991), [7-]24pp..
Richard Corballis, ‘Wilde ... Joyce ... O’Brien Stoppard: Modernism and Postmodernism in Travesties’, in J[anet] E. Dunleavy, M[artin] J. Friedman, M[ichael] P. Gillespie, eds., Joycean Occasions (Delaware UP 1991), pp.157-70.
Sue Asbee, Flann O’Brien (Boston: Twayne Publ. 1991), xiv, 142pp.
J. C. C. Mays, ‘Flann O’Brien, Beckett, and the Undecidable Text of Ulysses’, Irish University Review, 22, 1 (Spring/Summer 1992), pp.126-33.
Terence Dewsnap, ‘Flann O’Brien and The Politics Of Buffoonery’, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 19, 1 (July 1993), pp.22-36.
Thomas F. Shea, Flann O’Brien’s Exorbitant Novels (Assoc. UP 1993), 183pp.
Keith Hopper, Flann O’Brien: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-Modernism (Cork UP 1995), 192pp.
M. Keith Booker, Flann O’Brien: Bahktin, and Mennipean Satire (Syracuse UP 1995), 163pp.
Caoimhghaín Ó Brolcháin, ‘Flann, Ó Caoimh agus Suibhne Geilt: Flann O’Keeffe agus Mad Sweeney’, Irish Studies Review (Winter 1995), pp.31-34.
Henry Merritt, ‘Games, Ending and Dying in Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds’, Irish University Review (Autumn/Winter 1995), pp.308-17.
Declan Kiberd, ‘Flann O’Brien, Myles, and The Poor Mouth’, in Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation (London: Jonathan Cape 1995) [Chap. 28], pp.497-512.
Julian Gitzen, ‘The Wayward Theoreticians of Flann O’Brien’, Thalia: Studies in Literary Humor, 15, 1&2 (1995): pp.50-62.
Andrew Spencer, ‘The New Physics in Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman’, Éire-Ireland, 30, 1 (Spring 1995), pp.145-59.
Concetta Mazullo, ‘Flann O’Brien’s Hellish Otherword: From Buile Suibhne to The Third Policeman’, Irish University Review, 25, 2 (Autumn/Winter 1995), pp.318-27.
Steven Curran, ‘“No, This is Not From The Bell”: Brian O’Nolan’s 1943 Cruiskeen Lawn Anthology’, in Éire-Ireland, 32, 2 & 3 (Summer/Fall 1997), pp.79-92.
Conan Kennedy, Looking for De Selby (Killala, Co. Mayo: Morrigan [Morigna MediaCo Teo] 1998), 32pp.
Louis de Paor, ‘Myles na gCopaleen agus Drochshampla na Dealeabhar’, The Irish Review, 23 (Winter 1998), pp.24-32.
Ciaran Ó Nualláin, trans., The Early Years of Brian O’Nolan / Flann O’Brien / Myles na gCopaleen [first issued in Irish as Óige an Dearthár, 1973] (Dublin: Lilliput Press 1998), 128pp.
Declan Kiberd, ‘Gaelic Absurdism: At-Swim-Two-Birds’, in Irish Classics (London: Granta 2000), pp.500-19.
Steven Curran, ‘Designs on an “Elegant Utopia”: Brian O’Nolan and Vocational Organisation', in Bullán, V, 2 (Winter/Spring 2001), pp.87-116.
Steven Curran, ‘“Could Paddy Leave Off from Copying Just for Five Minutes?”: Brian O’Nolan and Eire’s Beveridge Plan’, in Irish University Review, 31, 2 (Autumn/Winter 2001), pp.353-76.
J. Brooker, ‘Estopped by Grand Playsaunce: Flann O’Brien’s Post-colonial Lore’, in Journal of Law and Society, 31, 1 (March 2004), pp.15-37.
Graham Greene, ‘A Book in a Thousand’, 1939; rep. in Rüdiger Imhof, ed., Alive-alive O!, 1985, p.42.
Niall Sheridan, ‘Brian, Flann, and Myles’, Irish Times, 2 April 1966, rep. in Timothy O’Keeffe, ed., Myles: Portraits of Brian O’Nolan, London: Martin, Brian & O’Keeffe 1973, pp.32-33.
Bernard Benstock, ‘The Three Faces of Brian O’Nolan’, Éire-Ireland, III, 1968, pp.52-65.
Lorna Sage, ‘Flann O’Brien’, in Douglas Dunn, ed., Two Decades of Irish Writing, A Critical Survey, Cheshire: Carcanet Press 1975, pp. 201-202.
Anne Clissmann, Flann O’Brien: A Biographical and Critical Introduction to His Writing (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1975).
John Hill, ‘Archetypes of the Irish Soul (II)’, Crane Bag, Vol. 2, Nos.1 & 2 (1978), [q.pp.], rep. Crane Bag Book (1982), p.253.
Richard Fallis, ‘All of O’Nolan’s work could be described as a series of brilliant farragoes of distinctly Irish experience’ (The Irish Renaissance: An Introduction to Anglo-Irish Literature, Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1978, p.218].
Hugh Kenner (‘Warning’ ([Chap.,] in A Colder Eye: The Modern Irish Writers, 1984).
Hugh Kenner, ‘The Fourth Policeman’, in Anne Clune & Tess Hurson, eds., Conjuring Complexities (1997).
Rüdiger Imhof, in Alive, Alive O! 1985, p.20, p.174.
Seamus Deane, A Short History of Irish Literature (1986).
Seamus Deane, Strange Country (1997).
R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600-1972 (London: Allen Lane; NY Viking/Penguin 1988), p.518-19. See also short bio-bibliography.
William Trevor, ed., Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories (OUP 1989), Introduction.
Gerard Keenan, Antony Cronin - The Professional, the Amateur, and the Other Thing: Essays from ‘The Honest Ulsterman’, Honest Ulsterman Publ. 1995, pp.1-12; p.11.).
Randall Stevenson, Modernist Fiction, Hemel Hempstead [Hertfordshire]: Harvester Wheatsheaf 1992, p.167].
Thomas F. O’Shea, Flann O’Brien’s Exorbitant Novels (Lewisburg: Bucknell UP 1992).
M. Keith Booker, Flann O’Brien: Bahktin and Mennipean Satire: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-Modernist (Syracuse UP 1995).
Concetta Mazullo, ‘Flann O'Brien's Hellish Otherword: From Buile Suibhne to The Third Policeman', Irish University Review, 25, 2 (Autumn/Winter 1995).
Caoimhghaín Ó Brolcháin, ‘Flann, Ó Caoimh agus Suibhne Geilt, Flann O’Keeffe agus Mad Sweeney’, in Irish Studies Review (Winter 1995/96), pp.31-34
Lorna Reynolds, reviewing A. L. Kennedy, Original Bliss (London: Jonathan Cape 1997), in Times Literary Supplement, 24 Jan. 1997, p.21.)
Brendan Glacken, ‘Myles, the Da and the Brothers’, Irish Times (30 Jan. 1999), [q.p.], review of Ciaran Ó Nuallain, trans., The Early Years of Brian O’Nolan / Flann O’Brien / Myles na gCopaleen.( Dublin: Lilliput Press 1998), 128pp.
Declan Kiberd, ‘Gaelic Absurdism: At-Swim-Two-Birds’, in Irish Classic, 2000.
Bibliographical details
Timothy O’Keeffe, ed., Myles: Portraits of Brian O’Nolan (London: Martin, Brian & O’Keeffe 1973), incls. Niall Sheridan, ‘Brian, Flann, and Myles’, Irish Times (2 April 1966) [rep. O’Keeffe, ed., Portraits, 1973, pp.32-33]; James White, ‘Myles, Flann and Brian’, in O’Keeffe, pp.62-69; John Montague, ‘Sweetness’, [q.pp.], et al. See also Donagh MacDonagh, ‘The Great Lost Novel’, unpub. MS (London: MacGibbon & Kee).
Anne Clissmann & David Powell, eds., ‘Brian O’Nolan/Myles Na gCopaleen Portfolio’ [ Special Number], Journal of Irish Literature, 3 (January 1974), containing Plays and stories; incls. contribs. by Seamus Kelly, ‘Brian O’Nolan, Scholar, Satirist, and Wit’; J. C. C. Mays, ‘Brian O’Nolan: Literalist of the Imagination’, pp.47-115; David Powell, ‘Who was Myles and What Was He?’; and Myles Orvell, ‘Entirely Fictitious: The Fiction of Flann O’Brien’, pp.93-103; also portofolio of juvenalia; two plays, The Insect Play and The Man with Four Legs; two stories, Two in One and Donabate; also ‘Sheaf of Letters’ ed. by Robert Hogan and Gordon Henderson; checklist by Powell, pp.104-12.
Selected Reviews, Eric Korn, ‘Uncontented Bones’ [review of Myles Away from Dublin], in Times Literary Supplement (30 Aug. 1985), p.959; Miles Orvell, ‘Brian O’Nolan’ [review of Stories and Plays and Anne Clissmann, Flann O’Brien], in Journal of Modern Literature (1977 Suppl.), pp.689-91; John Updike, ‘Flann Again’ [review of Stories and Plays], in New Yorker (June 1976), pp.116-18; Mervyn Wall, ‘A Flann O’Brien Reader’ [review of Stephen Jones, ed., Reader (... &c.)], in The New Republic (18 Feb. 1978), pp.31-33; Benedict Kiely, ‘Rare Roads to Hell’, review of The Third Policeman, in The Irish Times (Sat. 2 Sept. 1987); Denis Donoghue, ‘In the Celtic Twilight’, review of No Laughing Matter, in Times Literary Supplement (Oct. 27-Nov. 2 1989), pp.1171-72; David Widgery, ‘Comic Genius’, review of No Laughing Matter, in New Statesman & Society, 2, 74 (3 Nov. 1989), p.38. [Composite listing; with additions from Clune and Hurson, Secondary Bibliography, Conjuring Complexities, 1997.]
Rüdiger Imhof, ed., Alive-alive O!: Flann O’Brien’s ‘At Swim-Two-Birds’ (Dublin: Wolfhound 1985; 1993), incl. early pieces by Graham Greene (‘A Book in a Thousand’, p.42), V. S. Pritchett (‘Death of Finn’, p.55), Antony West (‘Inspired Nonsense’, p.55), Niall Sheridan (‘Brian, Flann and Myles’, p.74); also J. C. C. Mays (‘Literalist of the Imagination’, p.83), Anthony Cronin (‘After Swim’, p.112), Rüdiger Imhof (‘Two Meta-Novelists: Sternesque Elements in Novels by Flann O’Brien’, p.162)’, John Coleman, ‘The Use of Joyce’, et al.; Thomas Hogan [pseudonym of Thomas Wood, of the Dept. of External Affairs; also wrote as ‘Thersites’ in Irish Times], ‘Myles na gCopaleen’, in The Bell, XIII, 2 (1946), pp.126-40 [a witty ad hominem attack].
Anne Clune & Tess Hurson, eds., Conjuring Complexities: Essays on Flann O’Brien (Belfast: IIS/QUB 1997), 233pp. content: Acknowledgements and Abbreviations [vii]; Tess Hurston, ‘Suspension of Disbelief’ [viii]; Anne Clune, Introduction [xi]; Daniel Jacquin, ‘Flann’s Savage Mirth’ [1]; Caoimhghin Ó Braolchain, ‘Comparatively Untapped Sources’ [9]; Cathal Ó Hainle, ‘Fionn and Suibhne in At Swim-Two-Birds’ [17]; Anthony Cronin, ‘Squalid Exegesis: Biographical Reminiscence, Part the First’ [37]; Michael Cronin, ‘Mental Ludo - Ludic Elements in At Swim-Two-Birds’ [47]; Sue Ashbee, ‘At Swim-Two-Birds: Readers and Literary Reference’ [53]; David Cohen, Arranged by Wise Hands: Flann O’Brien’s Metafictions [57]; Hugh Kenner, ‘The Fourth Policeman’ [61]; Paul Simpson, ‘The Interactive ‘World of The Third Policeman’ [73]; Alf Mac Lochlainn, ‘The Outside Skin of Light Yellow: Flann O’Brien’s Tribute to Berkeley’ [83]; Jane Farnon, ‘Motifs of Gaelic Lore and Literature in An Beal Bocht’ [89]; Steven Young, ‘Fact/Fiction: Cruiskeen Lawn’ [111]; Hurson, ‘Conspicuous Absences: The Hard Life’ [119]; Chris Morash, ‘Augustine ... O’Brien ... Vico .... Joyce’ [133]; Jose Lanters, ‘Unless I am a Dutchman by Profession and Nationality’: The Problems of Translating Flann O’Brien into Dutch’ [143]; Rüdiger Imhof, ‘The Presence of Flann O’Brien in Contemporary Fiction’ [151]. Notes [165]; Primary Bibliography by John Wyse Jackson [185]; Secondary Bibliography by Anne Clune [187; containing listings of critical studies, reviews of works and critical studies, newspaper notices (per journal), dissertations, &c.]; Contributors [231] ISBN 0 9853890 675 5 pb. [x hb].
Thomas F. O’Shea, Flann O’Brien’s Exorbitant Novels (Lewisburg: Bucknell UP 1992), 183pp., with index; CONTENTS: Comhthron Féinne and Blather, The Early Experiments [17]; At Swim-Two-Birds, Exorbitance and the Early Manuscripts [50]; At Swim-Two-Birds, Verbal Gamesmanship and Palimpsest [81]; The Third Policeman, ‘Re-inscribing’ the Self [113]; The Hard Life and The Dalkey Archive, The Craft of Seeming Pedestrian [1422]. Selected Bibliography incls. Sue Asbee, Flann O’Brien (NY: Twayne 1991); Anthony Burgess, ‘Mister-piece’, review of The Hard Life, in Yorkshire Post (16 Nov. 1961); J. C. C. Mays, ‘Brian O’Nolan, Literalist of the Imagination’, in Myles, Portraits of Brian O’Nolan, ed. Timothy O’Keeffe (London: Martin Brian 1973) [n.pp.]; Ruth ApRoberts, ‘At Swim-Two-Birds and the Novel as Self-Evident sham’, in Éire-Ireland (Summer 1971), pp.76-97; W. L. Webb, ‘Flann O’Brien’s Misterpiece’ [sic], review of The Hard Life, in Manchester Guardian (17 Nov. 1961); also works of Freud, Foucault, David Hume, J. Hillis Miller, Kermode, &c.; lists O’Brien works, At Swim (rep. NY NAL 1966); At Swim-two-Birds, MS1 and MS2, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Univ. of Texas; Best of Myles (rep. Pan 1975); Blather, Dublin, I.1.-1.5, Aug. 1934-Jan 1935; Comhthrom Feinne, Dublin I.1-XI.2, My 1931-May 1935; Dalkey Archive (rep. NY Penguin 1977); Further cuttings from Cruiskeen Lawn [sic], ed. Kevin O’Nolan (London: Hart Davis 1976); ‘George Bernard Shaw on Language’, Irish Times (28 Jan. 1965); The Hair of the Dogma, ed. Kevin O’Nolan (London: Hart-Davis 1977); Letters to and from Brian O’Nolan, O’Nolan Collection, Morris Library, S. Illinois Univ., Carbondale Ill.; Myles Before Myles, intro. John Wyse Jackson (London: Grafton 1988); The Poor Mouth [An Beal Bocht], trans. Patrick Power (London: Hart-Davis 1973); ‘Standish Hayes O’Grady’, The Irish Times, 16 Oct. 1940; The Third Policeman (rep. NY NAL 1976).
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Seamus Deane, ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day Co. 1991), Vol. 3: selects At Swim-Two-Birds; The Best of Myles; 93 [At Swim, nihilistic extravaganza; The Third Policeman, language of the dead], 250 [Joyce paired the English original of Beckett’s Murphy with O’Brien’s At Swim as ‘Jean qui pleure’ and ‘Jean qui rit’, and was able to quote sections of it from memory]; 523 [a tragic group, with Kavanagh and Behan, ed. comm. on Anthony Cronin’s Dead as Doornails]; 526n [err. for C. C. O’Brien]; 611 [‘experimental tradition’, in Deane’s Celtic Revivals, 1985], 639 [‘By the time Flann O’Brien emerges with his resuscitated banalities, the tongue will be lodged wholly in the side of the mouth’, Declan Kiberd, Anglo-Irish Attitudes, Field Day Pamphlet, 1984]; 658 [rems. on O’Brien’s satire on the absurdity of Gaelic nationalist rural pieties]; 684 [‘exile-at-home’, ed. comm. Seamus Deane]; 937 [Benedict Kiely comments in 1968 on Frank O’Connor’s view that Ireland could not produced novelists; ed. comm.]; 939 [Patrick McGinley O’Brienesque acc. ed. JW Foster]; 942 [modernism of, ed.], 949 [Patrick Boyle, Irish-English dialect ear compared to]; 1431 [in biog. notice on Charles Donnelly, his contemp. at UCD].
Albert Manguel, ed., Anthology of Fantasy Literature (1983), contains ‘John Duffy’s Brother’ [story], pp.371-76, from Stories and Plays by Flann O’Brien [copyright Brian O’Nolan 1941, and Evelyn O’Nolan, 1973, rep. permission Viking/Penguin Inc and Brandt & Brandt agency].
Peter Ellis (Cat. 10; 2002) lists Faustus Kelly: A Play in Three Acts (Dublin: Cahill 1943), rare; performed 25th Jan. 1943 [£950]; The Hard Life: An Exegesis of Squalor (MacGibbon & Kee 1961), 157pp. [£250].
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Centre (Texas Univ., Austin), holds two series: Works (1934-1963) and Criticism (1989). WORKS: At Swim-Two-Birds, two typescript drafts, the first containing extensive marginalia and holographic additions by author, ‘was most likely composed between 1934 and 1937.’ (Thomas F. Shea); The second: typescript bearing signed note by author indicating that it is ‘the final version for Longmans Green’, typed in 1937. Also a group of clippings relating to the 1960 republication of At Swim-Two-Birds, together with a note from O'Nolan to Niall Montgomery 21 Sept. 1960). The Dalkey Archive: here in four drafts; the first, a holograph, dated ‘November 1962 ... July 1963’; the others dated August, September and October 1963, of which the first is identified as ‘first typescript’, the second as is described as ‘first typescript drastically revised’, the last being a typescript bound in boards and dated October 1963. Faustus Kelly (1943) in two manuscripts each in a ruled notebook, together with a number of unbound leaves of dramatic writing for that play. CRITICISM: a typescript draft of Thomas F. Shea, Flann O’Brien’s Exhorbitant Novels (Bucknell UP 1992). Go to: HRC (Texas) [link].
Snáimh-dá-en (‘swim-two-birds’), is one of the resting-places of Sweeney (in Buile Suibhne) after his madness came upon him at the battle of Moira (Magh Rath), is Devinish Island between Clonmacnois and Shannonbridge; Flann O’Brien spent part of his childhood at Tullamore, in Co. Offaly, nearby. See P. J. Kavanagh, Voices in Ireland (1994), p.150.
Suibhne’s verses: ‘Terrible is my plight this night / the pure air has pierced my body, / lacerated feet, my cheek is green -/ Oh might God, it is my due. [&c.]’, selected in Flann O’Brien’s translation from At Swim-Two-Birds (Penguin edn., p.84); otherwise entitled ‘Wolves for Company’ in ‘Frenzy of Sweeney’, from John Montague, ed., The Faber Book of Irish Verse (1974), p.83.
Stage version: A theatrical adaptation of At Swim-Two Birds was made by by Ridiculusmus, a Derry and London-based company wit David Woods, John Hough, Pete McCabe, and Angus Barr (reviewed at Cleere’s Theatre, in Kilkenny, Sunday Ind., 20.8.1995).
Locus classicus: A proximate source for the pastiche of Irish medieval lyrics conducted by Flann O’Brien in At Swim-Two-Birds is to be found in the ‘Cyclops episode’ of Joyce’s Ulysses, viz., the song of the Citizen’s dog Garryowen: ‘The curse of my curses/Seven days every day/And seven dry Thursdays/On you, Barney Kiernan,/Has no sup of water/To cool my courage,/And my guts red roaring/After Lowry’s lights.’ (Ulysses, Bodley Head Edn.,p.404.)
Sharpened needles (in The Third Policeman): The idea of ‘sharpness’ connected with iron needless is the subject of a discourse in J. M. Synge’s Aran Islands (1907). ‘“Take a sharp needle”, he said, “and stick it under the collar of your coat, and not one of them will be able to have power on you.” Iron is a common talisman with barbarians, but in this case the idea of exquisite sharpness was probably present also, and perhaps some feeling for the sanctity of the instrument of toil, a folk-belief that is common in Brittany. The fairies are more numerous in Mayo than in any other country, though they are fond of certain districts in Galway [...].’ (Coll. Works, II: Prose, 1966, ed. Alan Price; p.80).
Sheepness of allsheep: O’Brien owes an obvious debt to James Joyce in his celebrated account of the atomic structure of a sheep: ‘What is a sheep only millions of little bits of sheepness whirling around and doing intricate convolutions inside the sheep? What else is it but that?’ (The Third Policeman, 1993 Edn., p.86.) Cf. Stephen Dedalus: ‘Unsheathe your dagger definitions. Horseness is the whatness of allhorse. Streams of tendency and eons they worship. God: noise in the street: very peripatetic. Space: what you damn well have to see. Through spaces smaller than red globules of man’s blood they creepycrawl after Blake’s buttocks into eternity of which this vegetable world is but a shadow. Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past.’ (Ulysses, Bodley Head Edn., 1962, p.238.)
J. W. Dunne’s Experiment with Time offers a conceptual framework of The Third Policeman: ‘Death involves the continuation of the mind, but on a different time scale, called “time 2”. The mind, when it enters this different time-scale, which is the "fourth dimension" (a dimension which does not involve any kind of forward progression) wanders about in a daze and has to learn to control its focus of “attention”. Otherwise its new world seems like the world of a nightmare.’ [Student source.]
Hugh Leonard adapted The Dalkey Archive as The Saints Go Cycling In (Gate Th., 1965); At Swim-Two-Birds adapted for the stage by Aubrey Welch (Abbey, Feb. 1970) and by the touring company Ridiculismus (Kilkenny Arts Week, Aug. 1995; Riverside, Coleraine, &c.); recurrently the subject of cult correspondence in The Irish Times (e.g., ‘The Mind of de Selby’, &c., 20 Aug.-12 Dec. 1975); The Third Policeman recorded by Patrick Magee for BBC4 ‘Late Book’ programme, and produced by Maurice Leitch.
Flann & DIAS: Eamon de Valera helped Erwin Schrödinger to escape Nazi Germany with his wife and attached him to the DIAS, gave a lecture at Dublin University (TCD) Metaphysical Soc. with arguments for ‘not regarding causality as an irremissable necessity of thought’ and claiming that ‘openmindedness towards these questions was the most imperative demand’; Flann O’Brien objected to ‘an argument that could do away with the first cause’ and let fly at the institute in his column during Nov. 1942: ‘Talking of this notorious Institute (Lord, what I would give for a chair in it with me thousand good-lookin’ pounds a year for doing “work” that most people regard as recreation). a friend has drawn my attention to Professor O’Rahilly’s recent address on “Palladius and Patrick”. / I understand also that Professor Schrödinger has been proving lately that you cannot establish a first cause. The first fruit of the Institute therefore, has been an effort to show that there are two Saint Patricks and no God. [/] The propagation of heresy and unbelief has nothing to do with polite learning, and unless we are careful this Institute of ours will make us the laughing stock of the world.’ (Cited in Allanah Hopkin, The Living Legend of St Patrick, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1989, p.151; also in Irish Times, ‘How Myles na gCopaleen belled Schrödinger’s cat‘, 22 Feb. 2001, with the additional information that Schrödinger laughed off the attack but the DIAS demanded an apology from the editor Robert Smyllie, who gave it along with an assurance that Myles would never mention the Institute again.) [See also Improbable Frequency, infra.]
Dord Fian: ‘The music that Finn loved was that which filled the heart with joy and gave light to the countenance, the song of the black bird of Letter Lee, and the melody of the Dord Fian, the sound of the wind in Droum-Derg, the thunders of Assaroe, the cry of the hounds let loose through Glen Ra, with their faces outward from the Suir, the Tonn Rury lashing the shore, the wash of water against the side of ships, the cry of Bran at Knock-an-awr, the murmur of streams at Slieve-mish and oh, the black bird of Derry-Cairn. I never heard, by my soul, sound sweeter than that. Were I only beneath his nest!’ (q. trans.; John Philip Cohane, The Indestructible Irish (NY: Hawthorn Books 1969, p.172.)
Dear Editor: Nolan wrote up to nine letters under daily to The Irish Times under different names during 1940, before he was given a column of his own. “Two in One”, a story of a taxidermist’s assistant who murders his employer and hides within his skin, only to be arrested for his own murder. (David Wheatley, review of John Wyse Jackson, ed., Flann O’Brien at War: Myles na gCopaleen 1940-1945, Duckworth 1999, in Times Literary Supplement, 21 July, 2000, p.29.)
Home Rule?: ‘That’s a nice piece of law and order for you, a terrific indictment of democratic self-government, a beautiful commentary on Home Rule.’ (The Third Policeman, Flamingo Edn. 1993, p.165.) Flann O’Brien appears to set his second in the period of Home Rule, a form of independence never actually accorded to Ireland and perhaps intended as a jocose equivalent of the Irish Free State. Equally, this might be taken as feature of the three policemen, who stand as oddly Victorian figures in their Irish setting, or else contemporaries of the novelist who remain uncertain as to prevailing politic arrangements in the era when the novel - and their part in it - is set (viz., 1940).
Conan Kennedy conjectures that the name de Selby is taken from the De Selby Quarries on Mount Seskin Road between Terenure and Blessington, nr. Jobestown, from which core for the roads of S. Dublin was extracted and pursues the connection with Walter Conan (1867-1936), proprietor of a tailoring firm which made academic gowns and shared buildings and business interests with the De Selby company as well as being - more significantly - was the inventor of a meat preservating system, incandescent gas lamps, a keyless lock and an index carding sysem and a depth charge (patent fuse) that was adopted by the British war office as an anti-submarine weapon. Sir John Ross and Walter Conan himself give accounts of the invention, trial and attempted exploitation of the fuse. (See Looking for De Selby, Killala: Morrigan 1998).
Oscar O’Brien: At one place, a least, Flann adopts the Wildean manner of wit in characterising the peculiarities of De Selby: ‘Another of de Selby’s weaknesses was his inabilility to distinguish between men and women. [...] The age, the intellectual attainments and the style of dress of the Countess would make [that] a pardonable error for anybody afflicted with poor sight but it is feared that the same cannot be said of other instances.’ (The Third Policeman, 1993 Edn., p.173-74.)
Bashed about: O’Brien’s ‘Editorial Note’ to the “James Joyce” special issue of in Envoy (1951, pp.6-11) was reprinted by John Ryan ‘A Bash in the Tunnel’ in his edited collection A Bash in the Tunnel: James Joyce by the Irish (1970, pp.15-20), with small variations, viz., in place of O’Brien’s editorial words, ‘I doubt whether the contents of this issue will get any of us any forrarder. / A little, perhaps. Mr. Cass seems to establish that Joyce was at heart an Irish dawn-bursting romantic, an admirer of de Valera [...]’, Ryan has given: ‘Some think that Joyce was at heart [... &c.]’ Again, where O’Brien writes, ‘This issue of ENVOY claims to be merely a small bit of that garden’ (Envoy, p.11), Ryan substitutes, ‘All we can claim to know is merely a small bit of that garden’. (A Bash [... &c.], p.20.)
Aldous Huxley, Point Counterpoint (1928), Philip Quarles: ‘Put a novelist into a novel. He justifies the aesthetic generalisatins, which may be interesting - at least to me. he also justifies experiment. Specimens of his work may illustrate other possible or impossible ways of telling a story. And if you have him telling parts of the same story you are, you can make a variation on the theme. But why draw the line at one novelist inside your novel? Why not a second inside his? And a third inside the second novel? Ans so on to infinity, like those advertisements of Quaker Oats where there’s a Quaker holding a box of oats on wihc is a picture of another Quaker holding another box of oats, &c., &c. At about the tenth remove you might have a novelist telling your story in algebraic symbols or in terms of variation in blood pressure, pulse, secretion of ductless glands, and reaction time.’ (NY Harper 1965 Edn., pp.301-02; quoted in Niall Fisher, ENG507 UUC 2002.)
Tom Stoppard professed admiration for O’Brien’s first novel, At Swim Two Birds in an early interview [with Giles Gordan, Transatlantic Review 29 (1968)], and there are clear signs that Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon, Stoppard’s only novel to date, was written under its influence. At Swim is about a student who writes a novel about a novelist who is eventually taken over and killed by his own characters; Stoppard - somewhat less ambitiously - writes about a latter-day Boswell (Moon) who is chronicling the day-to-day activities of his patron (Malquist) and is eventually killed by the repercussions of those activities. Besides this self-reflexiveness, the two novels share a predilection for ready-made characters, often of a bizarre kind, ‘nigger skivvies’ in O’Brien’s Dublin, a black Irish Jew in Stoppard’s London, and cowboys in both. (See Richard Corballis, ‘Modernism and Postmodernism in Travesties’, in Joycean Occasions, ed. Janet Dunleavy, 1991, p.163.)
Blooming anxiety: The theory of anxiety of influence invoked by Seamus Deane and others to describe Flann O’Brien’s relation to James Joyce takes its rise and definition from Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (NY: OUP 1973). See Alex Davis, Irish Poetic Modernisms: A Reappraisal, in Critical Survey, 8, 2, 1996, pp.186-97; cited on Thomas MacGreevy Archive [link].
Improbably Frequency, a musical by Arthur Riordan and Bell Helicopter, directed by Lynne Parker for Rough Magic and set in Dublin, 1941, has roles for Flann O’Brien and Erwin Schrödinger: ‘As he seeks out the truth on Irish shores, Faraday is drawn in many different directions, his suspicions aroused with regard to just about everyone he meets. Why do the songs on O’Dromedary’s popular radio show all seem to forecast the weather? Why does the lovely Philomena turn up everywhere there’s trouble? Just what do the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger and the hack Myles na gCopaleen have to hide? [...]’ The IRA-veteran is called Muldoon. (Dublin Th. Fest.,2004; see RTÉ Arts Online / October 2004 [link].)
Check names and dates of family members, chiefly brothers and wife; also, check family home at Avoca Tce. [all as supra], being at right angles to Avoca Rd., Blackrock and facing The Smoothing Iron (mentioned by Joyce in Finnegans Wake).
Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)