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tall 8vo., 192pp., illustrated with drawings by Paul Hogarth, original cloth gilt. A fine copy in a VG pictorial dustwrapper which has a few neat closed tears. Brendan Behan (1923-64) was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright who wrote in both English and Irish. He was also an Irish republican and a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army. Born in Dublin into a republican family, he became a member of the IRA's youth organisation Fianna Éireann at the age of fourteen. However, there was also a strong emphasis on Irish history and culture in the home, which meant he was steeped in literature and patriotic ballads from a tender age. Behan eventually joined the IRA at sixteen, which led to him serving time in a borstal youth prison in the United Kingdom and was also imprisoned in Ireland. During this time, he took it upon himself to study and he became a fluent speaker of the Irish language. Subsequently released from prison as part of a general amnesty given by the Fianna Fáil government in 1946, Behan moved between homes in Dublin, Kerry and Connemara. Here he regales us his views on Dublin, the North of Ireland, Galway and the Aran Islands and the counties of the South - always with an eye on the people and their habits rather than on the places themselves. He was accompanied on many expeditions by Paul Hogarth, whose drawings compliment the spirit of the text as no other artist's could have done. Intellectually stimulating, Mr. Behan discourses on the evils of drinking potheen, the mores of Limerick girls, storytellers in the last bastion of Gaelic culture on the Aran Islands, the Irish middle-classes and what he calls 'the Anglo-Irish Horse-Protestants.' Enlivened with song, poem, story and Paul Hogarth's drawings, this book tells a lot about Ireland but tells us even more about that fascinating human Behan. Seller Inventory # 3538
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