BIOGRAPHYFlann O'brien is the pseudonym of Brien O'Nuallain who was born on October 1911 at 15 Bowling Green, Strabane, Co. Tyrone. He was the third child in a family of twelve. His mother Agnes and his father Michael Victor Nolan lived there only temporarily as Michael was a custom excise officer, a job which required him to travel frequently. For Michael Nolan, Irish was the language spoken by the family although they were literate in English. At the age of twelve, Bryan started school and went to Synge St before moving on to Blackrock College where he met John Charles McQuaid -future Archbishop of Dublin -who was then Dean of Studies. McQuaid took an interest in Brian's writings and published some of his earliest work in the College annual. After a brilliant career at University College, Dublin, O'Nolan did linsguistic research in Germany and then joined the Irish civil service. He seems to have been greatly influenced by James Joyce, a fellow countryman, as can be traced in his first novel called At Swim-Two-Birds. His other books and plays include An Beal Bocht and The Third Policeman (1940), Faustus Kelly (1943), The Hard Life (1960), and The Dalkey Archive, which was produced on the Dublin stage in 1965. At the end of the 1930s O'Nolan began in the Irish Times. Under the name of Myles na gCopaleen he became a well-known satirical columnist and he wrote for the Times from 1940 until his death on April Fool's Day 1966. |
|
CONTENTS |
|
THE BOOK-WEB |
|
BIOGRAPHY | |
LINKS and Bibliography | |
HOME PAGE | |