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<h2 class="heading-secondary heading-blog alt-font">
  <a href="/blog/blog/3211828/curly-wee-and-the-pooka">Curly Wee and The Pooka</a>&nbsp;
</h2>

<div class="post">
  <div class="message"><p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><strong><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/d656965ea9ec6e74107cd86743bbc7ad194e33fb/medium/51143nfj7cl-sl500-aa300.jpg?1412111759" class="size_m justify_left border_none" alt="" /><span class="font_regular">‘The Pooka and the Fiddler’ </span></strong><span class="font_regular">is a story told in verse and incorporating traditional Irish music. We recorded it almost ten years ago; here’s how it came about. I was on the ‘phone looking for gigs to add to some dates that we were to play in California. I ended up speaking with Curtis Pendleton from the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, whom I’d met at a Western Arts Alliance conference. She had explained that they had a “generous definition of chamber music” at their festival, so I called and I was glad I did. We agreed that Colcannon would do a regular concert, give a talk on some aspect of Irish music and … do a family show. Well, that’s where Aughrim was nearly lost, as they say in Ireland. We’d never had a ‘family show’ per se, even though most of material is family-friendly enough; but nothing designed to appeal to a family audience particularly. But in short order, I agreed to all the conditions, then got off the ‘phone and wondered what to do. For some time the band had been mulling the thought of producing a story/orchestra/Colcannon piece. Well, it was short notice for an orchestration but I had been toying with the idea of a story concerning a pooka. The pooka is a type of supernatural Irish creature that is found in animal form — usually goat; sometimes eagle, dog or other rarer forms. Traditionally, it’s a rather forbidding, even violent creature and prone to being misleading — rather like Trickster in Native American stories. (Not all pookas are that way, though. A well-known pooka in County Westmeath was a donkey that went into people’s houses at night and did housework.) Puck, in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream is a pooka type, and in Ireland a male goat is known as a puck. The medieval characterization of the Devil, with horns and cloven hooves, is based on the old pagan pooka image. </span></span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;">So, I thought why not write a pooka story and use music that we already played to fill in the story. I decided that the story should be in verse to make it ‘special’ and then I thought that if the story itself were about music — and the different kinds of Irish music — we’d have something to work with. And so, </span><em style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;">The Pooka and the Fiddler</em><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;"> was born. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 13px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Writing the verse was actually pretty easy for me. From my very earliest days I’ve had a love of verse and poetry. I owe this fondness to my father, who was a man possessed of a <img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/5e2e31e2c331cd5cc08658855ce31c3419abb8e9/medium/arena-theatre-company-cautionary-tales-for-children-jonathon-oxlade.jpg?1412133790" class="size_m justify_right border_none" alt="" style="margin: 5px;" />seemingly infinite store of doggerel, quotations, excerpts from speeches, stanzas of verse, snatches of songs and well-wrought aphorisms. He was likely on any and all occasions to have the <em>mot juste </em>or the wry quotation. From an early age he encouraged me to memorize verse and, when visitors came, would have me recite short poems from Hilaire Belloc’s <em>A Bad Child’s Book of Beasts</em>. One particular piece, <em>The Whale</em>, was my party piece. Another Belloc volume, <em>Cautionary Tales for Children</em> was also a favourite and contained such classics as <a contents="Matilda Who Told Lies And Was Burned To Death" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHzPag_SYx8"><em>Matilda Who Told Lies And Was Burned To Death</em></a>.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 13px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/969bf7b613ce785eb30414c9babdd75b2ac68283/medium/758-001.jpg?1412134035" class="size_m justify_left border_none" alt="" style="margin: 5px;" />And I, like many children of my generation, was a great fan of the comic strip, <strong>Curly Wee and Gussie Goose</strong>. Indeed, our daily newspaper for many years was the Irish Independent mainly because it ran the daily adventures of that dignified pig and his loyal friend. I have no doubt that my attempts in <em>The Pooka and the Fiddler</em> as well as in <em>Happy as Larry</em> and <em>O’Toole and the Goose</em>, owe a great debt to Belloc and to Maud Budden, who wrote the Curly Wee verse. Roland Clibborn’s illustrations were also hugely charming. I’ve searched for many years to find a Curly Wee anthology but they’re very rare — even though the strip was syndicated in newspapers all over the world — and expensive. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 13px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">We often perform <em>The Pooka</em>  live, and are actually going to get a chance to perform it again next summer at the festival where it all got started (now renamed the Mozaic Festival).  After last year's performance at the Durango Celtic Festival our friend Kevin Dawson, of the band Giant's Dance, surprised us with a <img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/28754dcf175b21a3128af34ce3fa641df4c2e712/medium/pooka-phone-wallpaper.jpg?1412134618" class="size_m justify_right border_none" alt="" style="margin: 5px;" />great illustration of his imagining of one of the scenes in the story. That's it there on the right.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 13px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">We recorded the <em>Pooka and the Fiddler</em> along with a second story, <em>Happy as Larry.</em> We would love for you to buy the album, of course, but as as special treat for you all this month we're providing a link to a <a contents="free listen" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://colcannon.com/the-pooka-and-the-fiddler--2">free listen</a>. Enjoy!</span></span></p>
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    <p class="post-info"><span data-time="2014-09-30T21:37:40-06:00" title="September 30, 2014 21:37">09/30/2014</span></p>

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<h2 class="heading-secondary heading-blog alt-font">
  <a href="/blog/blog/3167012/book-review-amongst-women-by-john-mcgahern">Book Review: Amongst Women by John McGahern</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><strong><span class="font_large">Amongst Women </span></strong></span><br><em><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/17a347f9111e366f0d6a5e4358067ddb2da32f8f/small/amongst-women.jpeg?1409623366" class="size_s justify_left border_none" alt="" />John McGahern </span></em></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Faber &amp; Faber 1990</span></p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">This is the story of Moran, a widowed, ex-IRA officer, his new wife, his three daughters and two sons. It’s also the story of a time in recent Irish history that is increasingly seen as distant and strange. Moran is a man bitter and angry that the country for whose freedom he fought is now run by those that he regards as crooks and charlatans. A damaged and disappointed man, he takes out his sporadic anger on those around him. In the case of his sons, this is often a matter of physical violence. The elder son, Luke, is totally estranged from that family and lives in London. The new wife, Rose, keeps the peace as best she can as Moran’s resentments result in the thwarting of his daughters’ ambitions and the alienation of his second son, Michael. All the while Moran pontificates about the centrality of family life and the loyalty that he expects from those around him. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The story unfolds slowly and in a very measured way and as it progresses the simple view of Moran as tyrant goes through change and nuance. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">In the author’s memoir, <em>All Will Be Well</em>, he speaks at the very opening of the book about the labyrinthine lanes criss-crossing the town-lands in his place of rearing. One of the oddities of these boreens is the peculiar way that a distant place seen from one vantage may appear vastly different further down the road. And so it is with the picture he paints of Moran. A man capable of charm and warmth when it suits him, he’s also a man who carries a great sadness around with him. And much like the experience of traveling those country lanes, he finds himself sometimes closer and sometimes farther from self-understanding. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">It’s not a book with an involved plot — much of what happens is pretty predictable. And it’s not a book whose characters go through any great changes. Rather it’s a picture of certain forces and histories playing themselves out in a way that many of us — particularly those of us who have lived in Ireland in the ‘50s and ‘60s — will understand all the more clearly because of its telling.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">This is something that I’ve noticed in Irish writers, this raking over the past. Roddy Doyle in the Henry trilogy deals with the Easter uprising of 1916 and continues (albeit not always in Ireland) through the 1950s. JG Farrell’s Troubles (reviewed in an earlier blog/newsletter) is set in 1921. William Trevor, Seamus Deane and many others have set works in earlier, pre-Celtic Tiger days. It’s understandable, of course. For a long time Ireland was an inward-looking country, repressed and sin-obsessed, with the Church ruling over all aspects of Irish life. This has left deep scars, I think, on the Irish psyche. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">It’s evident, too, from this story that the character of Moran is based on McGahern’s own father — a man he describes as having “no sense of humour” — an authoritarian bully. The similarities are evident from reading his memoir, <em>All Will Be Well</em>. One small detail is that his Moran, like McGahern’s father, wears a brown suit for all formal occasions.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 16px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">John McGahern’s sudden and untimely death in 2008 at the age of 71 was a shock. His illness was not common knowledge and his death was so sudden that he died on the day that he went into hospital. I remember in 2001 seeing a review and an excerpt in the Irish Times of his book, <em>That They May Face the Rising Sun</em> (published in the US as <em>Beside the Lake</em>). I had only been slightly aware of his work. I’d read some short stories and  his book, <em>The Pornographer</em>, back in the ‘80s and had not been particularly moved. I had somehow missed <em>Amongst Women</em> all together despite its having been shortlisted for the Booker prize. The Irish Times review of <em>That They May Face the Rising Sun</em> was glowing and the excerpt I read really impressed me. The book, unfortunately, was not readily available here in the US so it was a couple of years before I managed to get my hands on a copy. Not long afterwards I became aware of <em>Amongst Women</em>. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">It’s a slightly strange book. The style is knowing, the voice that of the omniscient narrator. The opening sentence draws you right in: “As he weakened, Moran began to be afraid of his daughters.” The style is simple, honed — even spare. "My only concern," McGahern once said, "is that I get the sentence right and describe my world clearly and deeply."</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">There’s an almost dispassionate tone that, despite the all-knowing teller, allows to arrive at one’s own conclusions — or lack of conclusions. </span></p>
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  <a href="/blog/blog/3167009/song-profile-brid-bheasach">Song Profile: Bríd Bhéasach</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><p><strong><span class="font_large"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Song Profile: Bríd Bhéasach </span></span></strong></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 13px;">I loved this song the first time I sang it. I found it in <em>Ceolta Gael 2</em>, a collection of songs in Irish Gaelic and the melody struck me first with its wonderful, wistful loneliness. The words were strange and sad and infused with a wild imagery. There was no other information given about the song and searches at the time found no recordings or other information. The language gave no clue to what region the song might be from, though I did hear from an Irish friend that the word ‘béasach’ was sometimes used in Donegal to mean ‘gentle’ or ‘kind’. The dictionary definition is ‘well-mannered’. There is also a famous poem called <em>Brídín Bhéasaí</em> (Bridget Vesey) by Antaine Raiftearaí (1779-1835) which led me on a brief wild goose chase, and assuming the song is not based on a real-life character, the title may have been inspired by the Raiftearaí poem. But they’re two very different songs. The Raiftearaí poem is a love song praising Bridget Vesey; Bríd Bhéasach speaks the words of her song herself and it’s the song of a ‘bean siúil’ — a traveling woman —  homeless and alone. </span></p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">We recorded the song on <em>The Life of Riley’s Brother</em> in 1995 and it was only last year that I was able to finally find more information on it. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">I found a recording by Áine Ní Ghallchobhair († 1994) of Gweedore, Co. Donegal who appears to have learned it from a neighbor, Síle Mhicí, Bean Uí Ghallchobhair, who had a great store of unusual songs. Apart from the Áine Ní Ghallchobhair version, I know of no other recording. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The instrumentation on the Colcannon recording is a little dark as befits the song. Brian plays the mandocello, which has a darker tone than the guitar. Even though the song is in a major key, to me it has a brooding, melancholy  feeling. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">I have done a translation which, as is often the case, doesn’t do justice to the poetry of the original Irish but it gives a pretty clear telling of the gist of the song.</span></p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; color: rgb(50, 51, 51);"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="font_regular"><strong>Gentle Bridget</strong></span><br><br>It’s my regret and my great grief that the water is not wine, that the root of the reeds is not flour bread, that the tips of the watercress are not bright candIes, where my love comes and goes.<br><br>A shame on marriage, a woe to all who undergo it; it’s bright at the beginning and then turns dark. It's many the fine young girl that it has worn down, her head on her knees and her eyes continually weeping.<br><br>Poor Bridget said, when she was good and old, 'I will be a hundred and one at the beginning of the month, wandering the roads aIl ‘round the country, oh l am worthless* and will always be so’. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; color: rgb(50, 51, 51); min-height: 15px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; color: rgb(50, 51, 51);"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">*also means single, unmarried </span><br> </p></div>
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  <a href="/blog/blog/3117212/song-profile-dublin-in-the-rare-ould-times">Song profile: Dublin in the Rare Ould Times </a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">“Dear, dirty Dublin”  — a phrase attributed to Lady Sydney Morgan (1780-1859) — sums up succinctly the way Dublin is held in the hearts of many. In James Joyce’s short story, <i>A Little Cloud</i>, returning journalist Ignatius Gallaher quotes that very phrase, all the while extolling the more exciting virtues of London and Paris and encouraging his unadventurous friend Little Chandler to seek out a richer life. Little Chandler’s attachment to Dublin is despite the dreariness all around him and the everyday Dubliner often seems attached to his city with a passion unsurpassed. </span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">This can be seen (and heard) in the song, </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">Dublin in the Rare Ould Times</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">. Written by Pete St. John in the early ‘70s, it went on to be recorded by a host of performers — including your own Colcannon — and has become the definitive sentimental song about Dublin. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">We recorded it on the album <i>The Life of Riley’s Brother</i> and a brief journal that I kept at the time tells me that we recorded it on Thursday, August 10, 1995, starting at about 11:30 a.m. We got it on the second take, which is good. The vocals needed a little fixing on “hallowed halls and houses” and there were a couple of fixes for flute and fiddle. A ‘fix’ is when something wasn’t as good as it might have been and you go back and re-record those not-so-good parts. For instance with “hallowed halls and houses”, mentioned above, the ‘h’ sound on ‘halls’ was weak but the rest of the recording was just fine. It had a nice feeling, people were playing well. It would be shame to throw the whole thing away for just a few less-than-perfect moments. So I went back to my microphone and sang along with a playback of what we had just recorded. At the point of ‘halls’ the engineer very quickly pushed the ‘record’ button for my microphone and ‘punches in’ my repair. Then quickly ‘punches out’ again. It takes a good deal of skill to get it just right but it’s one of the many reasons for using a commercial recording studio with experienced engineers. This was back in the days of recording to tape. (I think <i>Riley’s Brother </i>may have been our last analog tape recording, I’m not sure though…) These days the process, and the technology, is quite different.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The main ‘fix’ on this song was very different type, and a bit problematic. While I don’t like taking liberties with people’s songs, there was a road block in the original lyrics of this song: something that could  stop you in you emotional tracks, as it were. The original song had  the line “I lost her to a student lad, with skin as black as coal. When he took her off to Birmingham, she took away my soul.” To an American audience ‘Birmingham’ would almost inevitably mean Birmingham, Alabama rather than Birmingham, England. The pointing out that the student had “skin as black as coal” might be heard more pointedly than “student lad” (which has an almost affectionate tone to it) and it might be more quickly assumed to be a racist slur rather than an observation that the more common appearance of people of color was one of the more recent changes in Dublin. But, then again, the singer is bemoaning those changes so we’re right back into a possible racist resonance. I firmly believe the intent of the song was patently not racist, but the amount of thinking and sorting involved on the part of the first-time listener would be more than enough to seriously stall any forward momentum and to scatter the emotional coherence of the song. So I changed the lines to “I lost her to a student lad, whilst I was on the dole. When he took her off to England, she took away my soul.” And, oddly, I’ve heard it sung that way by others. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The song remains a favorite with audiences though we play it less frequently than we used to. I recall walking across the grounds of an Irish festival in Pasadena and hearing, on that fairly short walk, three different renditions of the song — that was its heyday. Still, it’s a great song. It might be time to work it up again. </span></p>
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  <a href="/blog/blog/3117164/book-review-dubliners-by-james-joyce">Book Review: Dubliners by James Joyce</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/41f36b88765ab3ec2e369777f52ffd53821691b4/small/dubliners.jpg?1406842898" class="size_s justify_left border_none" alt="" /><span class="font_large"><strong>Dubliners </strong></span><br><em>James Joyce </em><br><br>James Joyce’s <i>Dubliners</i> is 100 years old this year. It’s a book that is often cited as the perfect short-story collection or as an easy entrée to Joyce’s more difficult works,<i> A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man</i> or, more particularly, <i>Ulysses</i>. (<i>Finnegans Wake</i> is sui generis and really needs to be considered on its own merits.)  </span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">I hadn’t read </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">Dubliners</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;"> in many years — I may have been still a teenager the last time I delved into anything from the collection other than </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">The Dead</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">. I was pleased at how well I remembered the individual stories and delighted at how well they’ve held up — indeed, at how more powerful and nuanced they now seem to me. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The first couple, <i>The Sisters</i> and <i>An Encounter</i> are a bit open-ended and mysterious but there’s no denying the power of the language and the evocation of childhood confusion. In fact, the mystery of the pieces is what the stories are about — the unspoken things, the unclear things. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><i>Araby</i>, too, has that childhood confusion — mixed with a naive eroticism — is heart-breaking in its poignancy.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">With <i>Eveline</i> we move into a more adult phase of life experience and, to my mind, the heart of what the collection is about. Joyce spoke of holding up a moral mirror to the people of Dublin and perceived a ‘paralysis’ at the core of life in that city. Eveline cannot make up her mind to leave her home, unhappy as it is, and elope with her sailor lover. Indeed, she may have good reason to vacillate but she also risks letting her best chance of happiness elude her grasp. It’s particularly of note that the story was written around the time that Joyce had entered into his relationship with Nora Barnacle and was planning his own self-exile in continental Europe. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">I was a bit perplexed by <i>After the Race</i> and find it to be the least satisfying of the stories in the collection but the stories that follow, <i>Two Gallants</i>, <i>The Boarding House</i>, A<i> Little Cloud</i> and <i>Counterparts</i> are moving depictions of small lives that remain small because of that dreadful rigidity and conservatism of Irish social life — the petty frustrations that turn into petty cruelties and exploitations. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><i>Clay</i> is the story of Maria, a skivvy in a Magdalene laundry whose small life is hedged ‘round with sadness. <i>A Painful Case</i> is reminded me of Ishiguro’s <i>Remains of the Day</i> and the relationship between Stevens and Miss Keaton. Joyce is at his most pointed in this story. He says of Mr Duffy, one of the two main characters; “He lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glances.” There is something comical about Mr Duffy — indeed, in all of these stories, a keen sense of the comical and absurd will be rewarded with many chuckles, even guffaws — but his own self-importance and lack of self-knowledge rob him of his chance of some kind of fulfillment. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><i>Ivy Day in the Committee Room</i> offers a glimpse into small-minded politics and small ambitions, couched in memories of great political possibilities that ended with the death of Charles Stewart Parnell, which is commemorated on October 6 — Ivy Day. <i>A Mother</i> recounts the often hilarious machinations of a stage-mother and the world of amateur dramatics. <i>Grace</i>, which was to be the final story in the collection is a humorous and pointed story of an attempt to reform a drunk by conning him into attending a religious retreat. As with other stories, it features several characters that also appear in Ulysses. The tally of attendees at the retreat doesn’t bode well for the likelihood of success. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Then we come to <i>The Dead</i>, a story that I read at least once a year and one that never fails to move me. (I should say here that when John Huston made a film of this story I was skeptical that it could be done with any success. It was a triumph, a wonderful movie. )</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">A few thoughts in closing: it’s easy to read these stories as serious literature, but be aware that there’s a lot of humor in here, even if the human sadness always seeps through. Joyce has great sympathy for his characters, though his gaze was all-seeing and, sometimes, harsh.</span></p></div>
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<h2 class="heading-secondary heading-blog alt-font">
  <a href="/blog/blog/3045073/song-profile-the-streets-of-forbes">Song Profile: The Streets of Forbes</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/47677e092edfdc3cb4880e3dfb3b9e9b36bd68bd/medium/ben-hall-grave.jpg?1403908504" class="size_m justify_right border_none" alt="" /><strong><span class="font_large">The Streets of Forbes</span></strong></span><br><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px;">This Australian folk song appears on our CD, </span><i style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px;">The Life of Riley’s Brother,</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px;"> and was recorded on August 10, 1995. We started work on it just after 8 p.m. that evening, after a long day in the studio during which time we got good working tracks of </span><i style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Yeshe in the Garden</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px;"> and </span><i style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Step it Out Mary</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px;">. We spent about three hours that night working on </span><i style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Streets</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px;"> and managed, in that time, to get a good basic track. We wanted to get a distinctively Australian ambiance for this song about a 19th century Australian bushranger (outlaw), so we had our friend Paul Taylor in to record didgeridoo and bull-roarer. Our producer, Tim O’Brien, added a bouzouki track. It was probably the hardest and most productive working day of the whole recording session. </span>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The idea of performing — and then recording — <i>The Streets of Forbes</i>  had started out with a cassette tape of the 1968 Martin Carthy/Dave Swarbrick recording, <i>But Two Came By</i>. The album was long out of print so this tape, acquired from Doug Berch I think, was precious. I’d made a copy for Mike and one day at rehearsal he started playing the opening guitar lick. It was decided pretty much there and then to work it up and see what happened. Very soon we started finding an eerie quality in the song, which is also known as <i>The Death of Ben Hall</i> and was written (it is said) by his brother-in-law, John McGuire. I think it was the detail of tying the body to his horse and parading it through the streets of the town that was the pivotal image in that eerie feeling that we got. But I think, too, that the idea that Ben Hall had decided to “put away bushranging” and then been killed before he managed to make a new life lends the song a tragic quality.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">In any case, we worked hard that night to get a good basic track. The next day, Friday the 11th, we started in the studio at noon and added the clicky-sticks (or clapsticks, an aboriginal percussion instrument) and the bowed cymbal (not Australian, but it sounds cool and eerie…) As I recall, Mike played the clicky sticks and maybe even the bowed cymbal. Then we decided to re-record the vocal which was much better this time around— being rested was a help. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">We did have to fight  to keep this track. Usually the producer gets final thumbs up or down and I recall that Tim O’Brien wasn’t particularly convinced that the track worked. Later on, Charles Sawtelle, who mixed the recording, expressed his doubts, too — as I recall, the name Spike Jones came up briefly. But I think we won Charles over and we did keep the track. It remains something of an oddity in our oeuvre, I suppose, but we still take it out and dust it off and perform it once in a while. And now Mike gets to play the bass harmonica on it — which sounds much like a didgeridoo. </span></p>
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<h2 class="heading-secondary heading-blog alt-font">
  <a href="/blog/blog/3045064/irish-murder-mysteries">Irish Murder Mysteries</a>&nbsp;
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<div class="post">
  <div class="message"><p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/7d137b8e3e66386edc286ba8dbb4dad87468963f/small/cover-death-joyce-scholar.jpg?1403907979" class="size_s justify_left border_none" alt="" />I love a good mystery. In fact, the first ‘real’ books I read were my mother’s Agatha Christie mysteries and over the years I continued the habit and enjoyed exploring this very broad, if uneven genre. One of my favorite bookstores was and is The Rue Morgue in Boulder, Colorado and back in 1989 or thereabouts, when I was reading a lot of Joyce and immersing myself in Ulysses, I was chatting one day with one of the then proprietors, Tom or Enid Schantz, about things bookish and especially Joycean. In the course of the conversation, <i>Death of a Joyce Scholar</i> by Bartholomew was recommended. It was set in Dublin and featured the detective, Peter McGarr. It was a most enjoyable read and I went on to read many more mysteries by the same author. For the most part there really had been no murder mysteries set in Ireland up to that time and it was fascinating for me to see an outsider’s take (McGill was the <i>nom de plume</i> of Mark C. McGarrity, a writer from New Jersey) on the just-pre-Celtic Tiger world of Dublin and Ireland. </span></p>
<p><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">Since then there has been a  boom in Irish crime fiction with comparisons being made to the Scandinavian crime fiction phenomenon. Today’s genre is a bit darker than Bartholomew Gill — crime noir is an apt description — but it’s also a very rich field with some great reads. I’m not hugely well-read in the genre but I give you my take on some of the better-known writers. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">First writer in the genre was probably John Connolly. His Charlie Parker series is set in the US, though, so not really Irish, and has an odd supernatural and violent tinge to it. The writing is taut and absorbing but I found one book to be enough for me. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Stuart Neville’s <i>The Ghosts of Belfast</i> is a real-life horror story. Set in Belfast after the Troubles, it’s a very violent but thoroughly plausible book. Gerry Fegan is a former assassin haunted by the ghosts of those that he has killed. He seeks to make reparation and find some redemption but, somehow, nothing seems to change in any essential way. I’ve not read others of his books but I recommend this one.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Ken Bruen is a star of this new genre. I’ve read one of his books, <i>The Killing of the Tinkers</i>, and I really didn’t care for it. I found the main protagonist, Jack Taylor, profoundly unlikeable and there seemed to be an irritating attempt to make alcoholism appear interesting in much the same way in which alcoholics like to think that they, themselves, are interesting. (The fact is that most of us are bores.) The book also felt cod-erudite as if the author was trying to impress us with his wide and deep learning. I don’t impress that easily. But, as I said, his books are very popular. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Another very popular writer is Tana French. Her <i>In the Woods</i> was an excellent read even if I found myself perplexed by some loose ends. There was a sub-plot that featured prominently but that never got resolved and there was some strange behavior from one of the main characters that ended up explained as nothing other than just strange behavior. Still the main character was fascinating and the story engaging — I’ll read more. Jean has read all of Tana French’s books and really likes them. Apparently they all take a character who appeared in a previous novel in a minor role and turn them into the new book’s protagonist. It makes for an interesting change of point of view. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><i>The Wrong Kind of Blood</i> by Declan Hughes is the first in a series featuring Ed Loy, an Irishman returned to Ireland after many years in the US. His old home of Dublin is hard to recognize and he gets himself involved in a quagmire of plots. I found it a promising debut mostly, I think, because I liked the main character — but it was too full of goings-on. Just so much happening that it was confusing. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">My favorite writer of this genre, though, is Gene Kerrigan. I’ve read two of his books, <i>The Midnight Choir</i> and <i>Dark Times in the City</i>. Both were quiet, well-plotted and assured works. The characters and well fleshed out and real and the story lines come together is a very satisfying way. Both books  feature morally complex situations and conflicted characters. In the first book, <i>The Midnight Choir</i>, there’s an attempt to do the ‘right’ thing that goes badly wrong. In the latter book, a recently released ex-con makes a spontaneous decision that results in the reader rooting (reluctantly) for the lesser of two evils. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">There are other notable writers in the genre. John Banville writing as Benjamin Black has a series set mostly in 1950s Dublin and featuring the morose pathologist, Quirke (no first name given). I read the first book in the series, <i>Christine Falls</i>, and found the characters and their relationships much more interesting than the plot. In many ways, that’s a plus for me. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Adrian McKinty has a number of books to his name and a strong reputation. I’m not familiar with his work but I’ve had it recommended to me a number of times. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">There are other writers that I have had recommended to me and that I expect to try — Brian McGilloway and his Inspector Devlin series is next on the list. </span></p>
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  <a href="/blog/blog/2985754/cd-review-leonard-barry-new-road">CD Review: Leonard Barry ~ New Road</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><b><span class="font_large"><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/e1a190d197bf90ea22aec63044aa65baa944a0f5/small/leonardbarrynewroad.jpg?1401652148" class="size_s justify_left border_" />New Road </span></b></span><br><i style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;">Leonard Barry</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;"> </span>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">lb2 </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><br><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">This is Leonard Barry’s second solo recording and it’s very good. I say that upfront because the sophomore recording is the most nerve-wracking for any recording artist. It’s especially so for a soloist and may be even more of a challenge for a performer on a less common instrument — in this case, uileann pipes.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The soloist is a hero, a champion of his instrument and a champion for the tunes he plays. I have several different recordings of the Bach partitas, for instance, and the different soloists bring their different understandings of the pieces to me thereby enriching my understanding. A soloist in Irish traditional music will have to show their interpretations of well-known pieces, introduce new pieces that the audience might not have heard before — all the while holding attention with a sound palette (no matter how lovely) that might get tedious over the course of a listening. No such problem here. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">This is an accomplished and assured work with plenty of breadth, richness and depth</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The slow airs (<i>Iníon an Fhaoit a’ Ghleann</i> and <i>O’Rahilly’s Grave</i>) hold together with a musical and emotional coherence than is rarer than one might hope and the dance sets pop with perfect pacing and highlight some of the great work by the people who accompany Barry on this recording. (Tony O’Connell and Tony Byrne on <i>Mount Fabus Hunt</i> and Rick Epping, Cathie Jordan and Seamie O’Dowd on <i>Planxty Davis</i>) There’s also some fine flute playing by Conor Byrne on a set of jigs and an exhilarating bouzouki by Cyril O’Donoghue on a fling and set of reels. Cathie Jordan plays some lovely subtle bodhrán, John Carty, on banjo, brings a swaggering beat to a set of marches and Andy Morrow on fiddle is almost telepathic in the way he locks in on a set of slides. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Through all of this, Barry’s piping shines bright and the totally apt and finely-judged accompaniment is just exactly enough to keep the ears perked. There are some very well-known tunes here — oddly enough, <i>The New Road</i> is not one of them. But there are a few that were unknown to me — <i>The Cauliflower</i>, for instance, or the wonderfully named <i>Shaving The Baby With A Spoon</i>. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">It all makes for a very satisfying listen and some of the most masterful uileann piping you’re likely to hear anywhere. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Get your copy at <a href="http://www.leonardbarry.ie/shop.html"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">http://www.leonardbarry.ie/shop.html</span></a></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: justify; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">1. JIGS: Apples in Winter/Peataí Leary's/Tom Billy's (4:15) </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: justify; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">2. REELS: The Limerick Lasses/Johnny McGoohans/The Laurel Tree (feat. Andy Morrow) (4:16)</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: justify; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">3. HOP JIGS: Tommy O'Dea's/The Silver Slipper/Shaving the Baby With a Spoon (feat. Cathy Jordan, Seamie O'Dowd &amp; Rick Epping) (2:38)</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: justify; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">4. MARCH/REELS: Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine/Dogs Amongst the Bushes/Gabe O'Sullivan's (feat. John Carty) (4:23)</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: justify; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">5. SLOW AIR: Iníon an Fhaoit' ón nGleann (3:19)</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: justify; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">6. HORNPIPES: Junior Crehan's Poll Ha'penny / Moran's Fancy (4:29)</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: justify; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">7. JIGS: The Foxhunter's Jig/The Besom in Bloom (feat. Conor Byrne) (3:40)</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: justify; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">8. SET DANCE: Mount Fabus Hunt (feat. Tony O'Connell &amp; Tony Byrne) (3:00)</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: justify; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">9. REELS: Gerry Commane's/The Pride of Cloonsha/The Maid in the Meadow (3:26)</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: justify; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">1. JIGS: The Cauliflower/Seanduine Dóite/A Tailor I Am (3:55)</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: justify; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">11. SLIDES: </span>The Peeler and the Goat/ Dan Jeremiah's/Paddy Canny's (feat. Andy Morrow &amp; Rick Epping) (4:3)</p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: justify; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">12. FLING/REELS: Kitty Got a Clinking/Sarah's Reel/The Bog Carrot (feat. Cyril O'Donoghue) (3:27)</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: justify; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">13. SET DANCE: Planxty Davis (feat. Rick Epping, Cathy Jordan &amp; Seamie O'Dowd) (4:41)</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 13px; text-align: justify; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">14. SLOW AIR: O'Rahilly's Grave (4:13)</span></p>
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  <a href="/blog/blog/2985720/book-review-troubles-by-jg-farrell">Book Review: Troubles by JG Farrell</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="font_large"><span class="font_small"><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/a022dca0d240d4a087b3563f1d10defe538f9f11/small/troubles.jpg?1401650215" class="size_s justify_left border_" /></span>Troubles </span></span><br><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><em><span class="font_regular">JG Farrell </span></em><br>New York Review Books (Classics) <br>July 2010</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 13px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Never judge a book by its cover and be wary of judging it by its reviews — even this one. Given the title, Troubles, and given some reviews that I’d read, I was all prepared for a misery-fest and it took me a little while to realize that this is, in fact, a funny book. Yes, there’s a air of sadness running through it and there’s no happy ending; the tone is wry and the the humor is dry and biting, but it’s funny nonetheless. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Set in the Troubles — the war of independence in Ireland 1919-1921 — the story limns the forces at work during the  social and political upheaval of the times. The fact that it was published in 1970 was almost bizarrely timely since events that would again be known as ‘The Troubles’ were erupting in Northern Ireland. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Major Brendan Archer, recently demobbed from the British army after the First World War travels to Ireland to visit Angela, who over the course of a correspondence by letter has somehow become his fiancée. Not necessarily alarmed at such a prospect, though not particularly enthused either, it’s his hope to clear things up and do whatever needs to be done. When he arrives at The Majestic Hotel by the coast in Co. Wexford which is owned by Angela’s father, Edward Spencer, he finds the hotel rapidly falling into ruin and infested with cats. The human inhabitants are a group of superannuated old ladies, totally out of touch with the world outside. Edward Spencer, too, is almost completely out of touch as well. Imagining himself to be a kindly and generous landlord, he has no idea of the animus his mere presence arouses in the local populace nor does he seem to have a true grasp of the political forces shifting around him. As far as he’s concerned the ‘Shinners’ i.e. members or followers of Sinn Fein, are merely hooligans who have no appreciation of their betters and those who took part in the 1916 rebellion in Dublin are traitors who stabbed England in the back when it was distracted with fighting WWI. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The book has a tone somewhere in between Gormanghast and P.G Wodehouse and always one seems to be waiting for someone to do something or for something to happen — an odd paralysis pervades, not unlike that in Joyce’s Dubliners</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">And yet, as John Banville notes in his introduction, this book is also a lament for the old Anglo-Irish Ascendency, whose energy and talent could have added so much to an Independent Ireland. The book is sympathetic to the emotions on both sides of the issue and quite tender in its dealings with the main characters. But as the book progresses a feeling of indolent tragedy rolls in like sick fog. There are love affairs that could have happened but didn’t, relationships that did happen but probably shouldn’t have and a great feeling of something that could have been magnificent, even majestic, falling into ruin. The book ends with these words: “But he was still troubled by thoughts of Sarah. His love for her perched inside of him, motionless, like a sick bird. For many weeks he continued to think about her painfully. And then one day, without warning, the bird left its perch inside him and flew away into the outer darkness and he was at peace. Yet many years later he would sometimes think of her. And once or twice he thought he glimpsed her in the street.”</span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The book was published in 1970, the year that rules of entry for the Booker Prize changed, thus making this book and others ineligible for consideration. To correct this the Booker committee in 2010 issued an award for the Lost Booker. This is the book that won. A little late for JG Farrell who drowned in1979 at the age of 44. </span></span></p>
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<h2 class="heading-secondary heading-blog alt-font">
  <a href="/blog/blog/2910198/book-review-borstal-by-by-brendan-behan">Book Review: Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan</a>&nbsp;
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  <div class="message"><p><span class="font_large"><img src="//images.zoogletools.com/u/35514/afedfb34b05857f8022b1886d2e6836a0fcff3bd/small/borstalboy.jpeg?1398879583" class="size_s justify_left border_none" alt="" />Borstal Boy </span><br><em>Brendan Behan </em><br>Nonpareil Books, 1982 365 pp.<br>© 1958 <br><br><span class="font_regular"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Brendan Behan is one of those figures of whom it is practically impossible to separate the myth from the man. He was born in 1923 into an educated working class family in Dublin, a family with a long and deep Nationalist history. His mother, Kathleen, was a personal friend of Irish revolutionary leader, Michael Collins and his uncle, Peadar Kearney, fought in the 1916 uprising and was also the author of the Irish national anthem. This background drove him in two directions — Irish Republican rebel and writer. His nationalist activities led to his jailing a couple of times, but by his mid-twenties he had abandoned active support of the IRA and had embarked upon his career as a writer. These times in jail are the basis of the best of his work — <em>The Quare Fellow</em>, <em>The Hostage</em> (both plays) and Borstal Boy (a memoir). In his role as a writer, however, he became famous (as he put it himself) as “a drinker with a writing problem” and it is this image, so beloved of would-be artistic rebels, that has muddied his reputation. He was famous for drunken public appearances and a profane and scurrilous tongue and his personal legend has come to obscure a body of work which, at its best, is powerful and moving. </span></span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px;"><em>Borstal Boy</em> was published in 1958 after his two big successes, <em>The Quare Fellow</em> and <em>The Hostage</em> and, though both of the latter are infused with a fierce humanity, <em>Borstal Boy</em> has a voice that is more personal and direct — despite exhibiting some writing habits, which writer Alan Simpson once described as being “somewhat repetitive, involuted and in need of some cutting.” If Behan’s plays were written, as poet Donagh McDonagh once accused, “for himself”, Borstal Boy is certainly an explanation of himself. And Borstal Boy was probably his last great work before the drink and resultant diabetes killed him. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 13px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The events of <em>Borstal Boy</em> start with Brendan at the age of sixteen, on a self-appointed raid to blow up the docks at Liverpool. He’s arrested at his boarding house and after initial detention sent to borstal, a type of reformatory or prison for youth. It is in this confinement that his life expands and all glibly held notions of “the enemy" are questioned and altered. It should be noted that from the beginning of the story Brendan seems to have a generous sense of humor about life itself and a charitable view of the human condition. Here, among his fellow inmates and in the keeping of the “screws”, he learns more and more about the common humanity of those around him, forms friendships and occasional feuds and, despite some occasional hardships, has a generally good time. This is not the story of hardened IRA soldier coming to love his enemy but a more nuanced view of the individual within the system. Indeed, as a practicing Catholic (later self-described as a “daylight atheist”), his main rancor is reserved for priests that refuse him the sacraments because, as a member of the IRA, he’s considered to be excommunicated. But his sympathy for those around him, the common criminals, the low-lifes, and the screws trying to keep order, is what is most in evidence. He once famously said: ”I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.” That’s good enough for me. </span></span></p>
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