This Day in Literary History

February 9, 1923 – Brendan Behan—IRA soldier, prisoner of Britain, playwright, novelist, poet, media star—was born on this date in Dublin.

Imprisoned for IRA activity as a teenager, he came out with the experiences that formed the basis of his acclaimed autobiographical novel, The Borstal Boy. In the 1950s his play The Quare Fellow prompted critic Kenneth Tynan to observe, “It seems to be Ireland’s function every twenty years or so to provide a playwright who will kick English drama from the past into the present."

Behan’s outrageous comments (e.g., "Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves") made him a natural for the talk-show circuit. Eventually, however, drink and diabetes got the better of him. He died only one month after the birth of his daughter, leaving an all-too-small literary output for someone of his outsized wit and talent.

Even to the end, he couldn’t resist a one-liner. I first heard about his dying quip in a book called, appropriately enough, Last Words: Variations on a Theme in Cultural History, by Karl Guthke.

As he lay dying, Behan was nursed by a nun. Grateful for easing his agony, the self-described “daylight atheist” summoned the best words of thanks he could think of under the circumstances: “Ah, bless you, Sister, may all your sons be bishops.”

Truth or legend? I don’t know. But, as my friend Sherwood noted many years ago, about a high school bacchanal featuring a couple of buddies involving epic amounts of wine and women: “No matter what you may have heard—no matter how improbable, even impossible, it might sound—at least 80 percent of it is true.” Behan’s life was outrageous enough to produce that 80 percent, and maybe more.