THE LETTERS OF BRENDAN BEHAN

Also by E. H. Mikhail

THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL SETTING OF THE 1890s JOHN GALSWORTHY THE DRAMATIST COMEDY AND TRAGEDY .. SEAN O'CASEY: A Bibliography of Criticism .. A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MODERN IRISH DRAMA 1899-1970 *DISSERTATIONS ON ANGLO-IRISH DRAMA .. THE STING AND THE TWINKLE: Conversations with Sean

O'Casey (co-editor with john O'Riordan) .. J. M. SYNGE: A Bibliography of Criticism *CONTEMPORARY BRITISH DRAMA 1950-1976 .. J. M. SYNGE: Interviews and Recollections (editor) .. W. B. YEATS: Interviews and Recollections (two volumes) (editor) ENGLISH DRAMA 190D-1950 .. LADY GREGORY: Interviews and Recollections (editor) .. OSCAR WILDE: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism .. OSCAR WILDE: Interviews and Recollections (two volumes) (editor) A RESEARCH GUIDE TO MODERN IRISH DRAMATISTS THE ART OF BRENDAN BEHAN .. BRENDAN BEHAN: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MODERN ANGLO-

IRISH DRAMA .. LADY GREGORY: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism .. BRENDAN BEHAN: Interviews and Recollections (two volumes)

(editor) SEAN O'CASEY AND HIS CRITICS .. THE ABBEY THEATRE: Interviews and Recollections (editor) .. JAMES JOYCE: Interviews and Recollections (editor) .. SHERIDAN: Interviews and Recollections (editor)

.. Also published by Macmillan

The Letters of Brendan Behan

Edited by E. H. Mikhail

M MACMILLAN

Brendan Behan's letters © Mrs Beatrice Behan 1992 Selection and editorial matter © E. H. Mikhail 1992

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1992 978-0-333-52302-5

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or fransmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988,

or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road,

London W1P 9HE.

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and

civil claims for damages.

First published 1992

Published by MACMILLAN ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL LTD

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London

Companies and representatives throughout the world

Edited and typeset by Povey /Edmondson Okehampton and Rochdale, England

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Behan, Brendan 1923-1964 The letters of Brendan Behan. I. Drama in English. Behan, Brendan, 19 23-1964 I. Title II. Mikhail, E. H. 822.914

ISBN 978-1-349-11490-0 ISBN 978-1-349-11488-7 (eBook)DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-11488-7

List of Plates Acknowledgements Introduction Biographical Chronology

THE LETTERS

Contents

vi vii ix

xiii

1 1932-1939: Youth 3 2 1942-1948: In and Out of Prison 11 3 1951-1956: Freelance Journalist 39 4 1957: A Busy Year for Correspondence 85 5 1958: International Travel - Spain, Sweden 141 6 1959: Berlin, Paris; First Breakdown 167 7 1960: Dublin, London, New York; Second Breakdown 173 8 1961: 11000 miles across USA, Canada and Mexico 183 9 1962: New York, Dublin, London, France 211

10 1963: The Last Two Letters 227

Appendix A: Index of Recipients Appendix B: Select Bibliography of Behan's Works Subject Index

v

233 235 236

List of Plates

1. Brendan Behan in Sean O'Sullivan's studio, St Stephen's Green, Dublin

2. Brendan Behan, working in Dublin 3. Brendan Behan, with the original cast of The Quare Fellow 4. Brendan Behan, 1958, in Sweden at the invitation of Dr Olof

Lagerlof 5. In Tijuana, Mexico: Brendan Behan, friend Peter Arthurs and

Beatrice Behan 6. Brendan Behan, working in New York 7. Brendan Behan in New York 8. Brendan Behan at the Algonquin Hotel, New York

vi

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to all my benefactors who have given me much help and kindness in the preparation of this work. My first thanks are due to Mrs Beatrice Behan, the widow of Brendan Behan and owner of the copyright in his letters. Mrs Behan has throughout generously helped me with encouragement, information and forbearance. Mrs Rae Jeffs (now Mrs Peter A. Sebley) had the foresight to save Brendan's correspondence in Hutchinson's files and she willingly made it available to me. Mr Seamus de Burca, Brendan's cousin, provided much-needed personal reminiscences and family histories. Mr Rory Furlong, Brendan's stepbrother, volunteered contacts that have led to the discovery of some correspondence. Mr Ulick O'Connor, Brendan's biographer, graciously gave me the benefit of his experience and answered my many queries. Mr Nick Hem combed through the files of Eyre Methuen. Mr Cathal Goulding has always been more than willing to assist me. Both Mr lain Hamilton and Sir Robert Lusty have kindly given me permission to quote from their correspondence with Brendan. All these helpers have laboured far beyond the call of friendship, duty or scholarship; and I am profoundly in their debt.

The book benefited greatly from the translations of Gaelic texts into English by Dr Richard Wall and Mr Michea.I 6 hAodha; from the comments and suggestions made by Mr John Ryan, Dr Richard Wall and Dr Brian Tyson; from the preparation of the final typescript by Miss Bea Ramtej; and from the patience and encouragement of my wife Isabelle. Thanks are also due to the University of Lethbridge for granting me a sabbatical leave to complete this work; and to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for awarding me a Research Grant as well as a Leave Fellowship without which this volume could not have come into existence.

It is also a pleasant duty to record my appreciation to the staff of the University of Lethbridge Library; the Fales Library of New York University; the Morris Library of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale; the National Library of Ireland; the Royal Irish Academy; the British Library, London; and the Newspaper Library, Colindale.

Some editorial material has been derived from previously published works, particularly the books by Mr Ulick O'Connor, Mrs Rae Jeffs, Mrs Beatrice Behan, and Mr Seamus de Burca.

vii

viii Acknowledgements

My gratitude is also due to the following for support, encouragement, assistance, information, editorial material, or notification of the whereabouts of certain letters: Dr Les Allen; Professor William A. Armstrong; Mr Tony Aspler; the Honourable David Astor; Mr G. H. M. B. Baird; Mr Francis Balle of the Institut Fran~ais de Presse et des Sciences d'Information; Mr Brian Behan; Mrs Kathleen Behan; Mr Bob Bradshaw; Professor Bernard Benstock; Dr Cheryl Calver; Mrs Aline Chapman; Mr Philip Connolly; Ms Hilary Cummings of the Morris Library at Southern Illinois University; Mr Kenneth W. Duckett; Ms Ellen S. Dunlap of the Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas; Mr Thomas Doran; Professor Ruth Dudley Edwards; Mr John Feeney; Dr Monk Gibbon; Miss Ann Louise Gilligan; Mrs Imelda Gilligan; Ms Katherine F. Gould of the Library of Congress; Dr Theodore Greider; Ms Gillian Greenwood, Assistant Editor of Books and Bookmen; Miss Rosemary Howard; Miss Joanne Hurst of the New Statesman; Mr Valentin Iremonger; Mr Sean Kavanagh; Mr Fred Keefe of the New Yorker; Mr Benedict Kiely; Professor David Krause; Dr Olof Lagerlof; Mr Tony Lennon; Fr Uegene McCarthy; Mr Riobard Mac G6niin; Mr Desmond MacNamara; Miss Deirdre McQuillan; Mr Eamonn Martin; Mr Claude Marks; Mr Paul Myers, Curator of the Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the New York Public Library; Ms Kathleen R. Nathan of Hutchinson Publishing Group Limited; Miss Ide nf'Thuama of the Royal Irish Academy; Mrs David O'Connell; Mr Sean O'Faolain; Mr Michea! 6 hAodha; Miss Mary O'Neill; Mr and Mrs John O'Riordan; Mr Corey Phelps; Professor Mark Roberts; Mr Bernard Rogan; Mr John Ryan; Miss Celia Salkeld; Mr Jim Savage; Mr Lee Savage; the late Alan Simpson; Ms Carolyn Swift; Mr Herbert Tarr; Mr Mickey Traynor; Mr Sindbad Vail; Dr Richard Wall; Mr Joe Walsh, and Mr John Gillard Watson.

Although the task of locating, collecting, and editing this correspondence has been mine, all those mentioned in these acknowledgements have been the guiding genius behind this book. If the names of any helpers have been inadvertently omitted, I beg their forgiveness and should like to thank them collectively.

E. H. MIKHAIL

Introduction

Brendan Behan- unlike W. B. Yeats, Sean O'Casey, and Bernard Shaw­was not a diligent letter-writer. Almost everyone connected with him testified to this fact. According to his widow, Beatrice, he was 'not much given to letter writing'.1 His cousin, Seamus de Burca, quoted him as saying: 'Whoever writes my biography will get no help from my letters. I never write any.'2 Rae Jeffs, the editor of his tape-recorded works, noticed that 'he was now using the telephone instead, possibly because he found it a less troublesome, if more expensive, way of communicating'.3 This was confirmed by Micheal 6 hAodha, the drama director, who wrote that 'Behan's letters are fairly scarce as he usually 'phoned';4 by Riobard MacG6rain, of the Irish language organisation, Gael-Linn, who said that Brendan 'wasn't normally a letter-writer. The phone was his prime medium of communication in dealing with individuals';5 and by Sindbad Vail, the former editor of the Paris periodical Points, who asked 'I wonder how many he wrote and how many are available?'6 Brendan himself seemed to agree when he wrote to his halfbrother, Rory: 'One of the reasons I never write letters is that I can get more than a dollar a word for writing.' 7

This claim of not being among the most prolific of letter-writers had also been made by Oscar Wilde. 'I never answer or write letters', as Coulson Kernan quoted him as saying.8 Both Oscar Wilde and Brendan Behan, however, turned out not to be bad correspondents after all, considering their meteoric careers and their deaths at a relatively early age. Wilde, for example, corresponded with some eleven different periodicals; Behan with seventeen. This compares very favourably with Yeats, who corresponded with nineteen periodicals, although he lived much longer than either Wilde and Behan. As in the case of Wilde, the search for Behan's letters has been hampered by their dispersal; they have been widely scattered and keep turning up in unexpected places. Moreover, some correspondents have not preserved their letters.

Yet those letters that have been saved and included in this collection are certainly worth the trouble of uncovering. Those who have never had the chance to meet Brendan will not recapture the art of his talking from his writings; the nearest approach to this is perhaps by way of his letters, particularly those written without thought of publication. Since Brendan put into spoken spontaneous drama a thousand times more

ix

X Introduction

energy than he put into his more enduring writing, the search for his meanings and motives in what he left is limited. Brendan led the most public of private lives, so public - in fact almost monstrously so towards the end - that the world at large took its attention from what he wrote and focused it on him.

Although Behan's dramatic output was limited, he made a deep impression on the British theatre. The Hostage opened in London to rave reviews from the critics. Kenneth Tynan went out on a limb and declared that Brendan Behan stood a good chance of filling the place vacated by Sean O'Casey.9 The Quare Fellow had already succeeded beyond the wildest expectation. No other recent Irish playwright had, in the I 950s, scored a success with West End audiences comparable with that of Brendan Behan. Despite the global fame of W. B. Yeats, ]. M. Synge and Sean O'Casey, they had largely failed to engage the attention or support of the London entertainment-seekers. The Hostage and The Quare Fellow alone, together with the autobiographical Borstal Boy, constitute an cxuvre - enough to justify Behan's existence as a writer.

.. .. ..

The majority of the letters printed here have been transcribed from the originals or from photostats. Where the originals have eluded my search, some letters have been taken from copies, or from drafts found among Behan's papers. Letters to the Press are reprinted from the files of the newspapers in which they appeared, from carbon copies preserved by Mrs Beatrice Behan, or from clippings in my own scrapbook. Whenever possible, the present location or ownership of the letters is indicated at the end of each headnote. Where applicable details of any previous publication are given. Any variance between the present text and that of a previously published one is also pointed out.

Brendan Behan obviously wrote most of these letters with no idea that they would ever appear in print. However, I have retained his original spelling as it would contribute to the sense of his character coming through his letters. Corrections or additions editorially supplied are enclosed within square brackets.

A certain amount of annotation of the letters seemed to be necessary to explain or to elaborate references which might otherwise be obscure. I have tried to make the notes as brief as possible, and have not given many cross-references, trusting that the index will give sufficient help when necessary. All dates editorially supplied are enclosed within square brackets. In the case of the letters to newspapers, whenever the date of

Introduction xi

writing was not available I cited the date of publication, also in square brackets. Foreign words have been italicised.

Brendan, like J. M. Synge, was always careful about the dates of his letters. By contrast, Oscar Wilde seldom dated his letters; and W. B. Yeats rarely mentioned the year in which he wrote, sometimes merely giving the month or the day of the week, sometimes no date whatever. Brendan, however, did not stick to one form of date; his letters carried such different forms as: 25-11-'42; 15-6-43; December 4, '43; 18 May, '46; 6-IV-46; 26th February, 1956; July 8th, 1957; 12th of August, 1957; I October 1957; 9th November 1957; or 24.6.1958.

Nor was Brendan consistent in signing his letters. Whereas Yeats almost invariably signed his name in full, 'W. B. Yeats' - even in letters to his father, his sisters, or his most intimate friends - Brendan's various forms of signature included 'Brendan', 'B.F.B.', 'B.B.', 'Breandan 0 Beachain', 'Brendan Behan', 'Breandan', 'F. Scott Behan', 'Yubil', and 'Pig'.

Brendan's spelling, like Wilde's, was usually correct, though Wilde often misspelled proper names, even places like Babbacombe and Bemeval, where he stayed for several months. Yeats, on the other hand, was an uncertain and erratic speller, as he was always ready to admit. In his earlier letters spelling mistakes, are on the whole, infrequent; but as he grew older, his spelling deteriorated.

Again, Brendan's punctuation, on the whole, was correct. At least, it was neither like Wilde's, which consisted mainly of short dashes representing every kind of stop, nor like that of Yeats, which was often chaotic. Yeats wrote to Robert Bridges in 1915: 'I do not understand stops. I write my work so completely for the ear that I feel helpless when I have to measure pauses by stops and commas.'10 On at least one occasion he invoked Ezra Pound's help in the punctuation of a book of his verse. Brendan, likewise, always sought the help of his editors.11

Other peculiarities of Brendan's writing include his use of capital R and B rather than their lower-case equivalents - even in the middle of a word. This recalls Wilde's erratic use of capital letters T and H. To perpetuate this whim, however, would only irritate the reader, and I have followed the standard usage wherever the capital clearly has no significance. Nor could Brendan distinguish between the possessive 'its' and the contractive 'it's'. Another grammatical mistake he frequently made was the common one of using the double negative. I have re­paragraphed a few of Brendan's letters as he sometimes either wrote very short paragraphs, or used wrong paragraph beginnings. Most of Brendan's letters were typed, unless a typewriter was not available. This is the first letter I ever wrote to you in long hand (which I am not good at)', he wrote to lain Hamilton in September 1957.

xii Introduction

The list of correspondents is indeed various; for in addition to letters to the editors, the recipients included relations, friends, IRA colleagues, civil servants, theatrical directors, publicans and complete strangers. There are two letters to schoolchildren written when Brendan was at the top of his fame. Four unpublished poems by him appear here for the first time. Some letters contain extracts from his early writings, such as The Landlady, which has not yet been published. Others reveal his competence in both the Irish and the French languages. Most of them, however, throw light on his views on various matters such as nationalism and religion; or on his outlook on life in general. There are some letters to the editors - also published here for the first time -which were refused publication because of their outspokenness. Others, previously cut or censored, now appear in their original form.

It is hoped that these letters will explode the myth of the boisterous performer in order to restore the reality of the artist and the man.

Notes

1. Beatrice Behan, My Life with Brendan (London: Leslie Frewin, 1973) p. 63. 2. Seamus de Burca, Brendan Behan; A Memoir (Newark, Delaware:

Proscenium Press, 1971) p. 14. 3. Rae Jeffs, Brendan Behan: Man and Showman (London: Hutchinson, 1966)

p. 103. 4. In a letter to the present editor dated 24 August 1979. 5. In a letter to the present editor dated 21 September 1979. 6. In a letter to the present editor dated 3 September 1979. 7. In a letter to Rory Furlong dated 19 May 1961. 8. Coulson Kernan, In Good Company: Some Personal Recollections (London:

John Lane, 1917) p. 193. 9. Kenneth Tynan, 'New Amalgam', The Observer (London) 19 October

1958, p. 19. 10. The Letters of W. B. Yeats, edited by Allan Wade (London: Rupert Hart­

Davis, 1954), p. 598. I 1. Cf. 'I asked just how much rewriting was done on his books and articles

and plays. "Ah, an ocean of new words," he said, "but despite what you read, I do it myself, naturally with the help of editors and directors. And what's wrong with that?'" Walter Hackett, 'The Behan', Washington Post, 22 March 1964, Show Supplement, p. 61.

Biographical Chronology

Life

I923 9 February

I928-34

I93I

I934-37

I937

I939 November

I940 February

I 94 I November

I942 April

Brendan Behan born in Dublin, the first child of Stephen and Kathleen (Kearney) Behan. Mrs Behan had been married before to Jack Furlong, who died leaving her with two young sons, Rory and Sean. Attends School of the French Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de PauL North William Street, Dublin. Joins Fianna Eireann (the Republican scout organisation founded by Countess Markievicz). Attends Irish Christian Brothers' School at St Canice's, North Circular Road, Dublin. Attends Day Apprentice School to learn the trade of house-painting. Dublin Corporation relocates the Behans in a housing estate in Crumlin. Joins the Irish Republican Army (IRA), transferring from Fianna Eireann. Volunteers to fight in Spain on the Republican side. First article published in An Phoblact (The Republic). Arrested in Liverpool for illegal IRA bomb­planting activity and remanded in Walton Jail. Tried and sentenced to three years Borstal (i.e. reform) treatment in Hollesley Bay Borstal Institution, Suffolk, England. Released and deported to Ireland under an Expulsion Order. Involved in shooting incident at Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, on the day of the annual Easter Sunday commemoration of the Rising of I9I6; sentenced to fourteen years for shooting at a policeman; begins sentence in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin.

xiii

xiv

1942 June

1943 July

1944 June

1946 November 1946-51

1947 January

March

July

1948 May

August 1951--6 1952 October

November

1953 October-November

1954 April November

1955 February

1956 May

September­October November

1957 January

Biographical Chronology

'I become a Borstal Boy', his first story, published in The Bell. Transferred to Arbour Hill Military Prison, Dublin. Transferred to the Curragh Internment Camp, County Kildare. Released from prison in the General Amnesty. Becomes severally housepainter, seaman, and sometime smuggler. Goes to the Blasket Islands, County Kerry, and lays the basis for Brendan Behan's Island. Arrested in Manchester for attempting to free an IRA prisoner from an English jail. Released from Strangeways Jail (the same prison that had held his Grannie Furlong and Aunt Emily, who had been jailed for running a safe house for the IRA bomb campaign in 1939). Sentenced to one month with hard labour in Mountjoy Prison for assaulting a policeman. Goes to live in Paris. Works as a freelance journalist. Arrested at Newhaven, Sussex, for evading a deportation order. Released from Lewes Prison, Sussex; visits Samuel Beckett in Paris. The Scarperer, by 'Emmet Street', published serially in The Irish Times. Begins weekly column in The Irish Press. The Quare Fellow, directed by Alan Simpson, opens at the Pike Theatre, Dublin. Marries Beatrice ffrench-Salkeld, daughter of the Irish artist Cecil Salkeld, at the Sacred Heart Church, Donnybrook. The Quare Fellow, directed by Joan Littlewood, opens at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, East London. Borstal Boy published serially in the Irish edition of the Sunday Dispatch. The Quare Fellow published. Draft of &rstal Boy accepted for publication by Hutchinson.

March 1958 January

April

June August October

November

December 1959 March

April

July

1960 January March

September

December 1961 January

March

July September­October

1962 February

March July

September

Biographical Chronology

Begins An Giall (The Hostage) in Irish. Goes to Ibiza, Spain.

XV

Goes to Paris to discuss the production of The Quare Fellow. An Giall opens at Darner Hall, Dublin. Goes to Sweden. Starts translation of An Giall. The Hostage, directed by Joan Littlewood, opens at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, East London. Borstal Boy published. The Quare Fellow, directed by Jose Quintero, opens off-Broadway, New York. The Hostage published. Goes to Berlin for the opening of The Quare Fellow. Goes to Paris. The Hostage selected to represent Great Britain at the Theatre des Nations Festival. The Hostage moves to Wyndham's Theatre in the West End of London. Suffers first serious breakdown. Tapes Brendan Behan's Island in Dublin. Begins Richard's Cork Leg. Goes to London. Second breakdown. Goes to New York for the opening of The Hostage at the Cort Theatre. Returns to Dublin. Translates Richard's Cork Leg into Irish. A Fine Day in the Graveyard, a one-act play in Irish, rejected by Gael Linn. Travels 11 000 miles across the USA, Canada, and Mexico. Spends two periods in hospital. Returns to Dublin. The Big House published in the Evergreen Review. Film version of The Quare Fellow opens in London. Returns to New York for the off-Broadway production of The Hostage. Returns to Dublin. The Hostage selected in France as the best play of the season. Goes to London. Enters home for alcoholics.

xvi

October November

I 963 February April July September November

December 1964 January

20 March

Posthumous Events

1964 June September

1965 September 1967

1972 March

1973

Biographical Chronology

Brendan Behan's Island published. Goes to France to recuperate. Returns to Dublin after failure of cure. Takes final trip to USA. Tapes Confessions of an Irish Rebel in New York. Returns to Dublin and to hospital. Hold Your Hour and Have Another published. Tapes Brendan Behan's New York in Dublin. Blanaid Behan born. Enters hospital. Hospitalised intermittently. Dies in Meath Hospital, Dublin.

The Scarperer published. Brendan Behan's New York published. Confessions of an Irish Rebel published. Moving Out and A Garden Party, edited by Robert Hogan, published. Richard's Cork Leg, directed by Alan Simpson, opens at the Peacock Theatre, Dublin. Richard's Cork Leg published.