Brendan Behan and the Irish Language: A Reconsideration

Brian Ó Conchubhair

FULL TEXT

ABSTRACT (en)

Brendan Behan played a crucial role in challenging the prevailing rural aesthetic that dominated Irish letters in the 1940s and 1950s. Like Máirtín Ó Cadhain and Flann O’Brien/Myles na gCopaleen, Behan maintained a vexed, and complicated relationship with the Irish language, Irish-language institutions and pressure groups. This essay reconsiders Behan’s relationship with the Irish language and explores some common assumptions to argue that in his life and writing, he successfully and repeatedly challenges and contradicts facile stereotypes and binary opposites about Irish life, culture, and people.

KEYWORDS (en)

Brendan Behan, nationalism, Irish Republicanism, social class, stereotypes, prison, language acquisition

DOI

https://doi.org/10.14712/2571452X.2024.67.4

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