The Curmudgeon Files #2

And then there was Brendan Behan, the alcoholic Irish playwright. Behan described himself as “a drinker with writing problems.” When a nun once severely berated him for his drinking, he replied, “Ah, bless you, Sister, and may all your sons be bishops.”

It seems that he was at odds with just about everything-–the British, the Church, even the Irish. “If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks.” He commented. “It’s not that the Irish are cynical,” he said, “it’s rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.”

A rabid Nationalist, he joined the Irish Republican Army at age 16, and in 1942 embarked on an unauthorized solo mission to England to blow up the Liverpool docks. It failed, and Behan was arrested for the attempted murder of two policemen. He was released under the 1946 Amnesty and returned to Dublin and the wrath of the Irish Republican Army for his unauthorized action. “I had been court martialed in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence,” he recounted, “so I said they could shoot me in my absence.”

There came a time in Dublin when all the pubs were closed by law for one day--all, that is, except a private bar at a prestigious national dog show held there annually at the same time. This day, poor Behan was at his wit’s end for a much-needed drink. A few of his friends took pity and dragged him down to the private bar at the dog show. After being stabilized by a few drinks, Behan was asked what he thought of the place. “It’s a lovely little pub,” he replied. “Now if they’d just get rid of these damn dogs….”

But his alcoholism finally caught up with him and he died in a Dublin hospital on March 20, 1964, at age 41.

Ray Cassidy