“Brendan Behan’s” 100th birthday Celebrated by RTÉ

Brendan Behan was born one hundred years ago, on 8 February 1923, and to celebrate this important birth centenary, RTÉ has put together a programme of themed content, both new and existing through RTÉ Archives, across television, radio and online.

MAIN PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS

ON TELEVISION

Nationwide: RTÉ One, 7pm, Wednesday 8 February

In a special programme, RTÉ One’s Nationwide looks back on the life and work of Brendan Behan, revisiting many locations of Behan’s city including Russell Street in the north inner city where he grew up, Mountjoy prison, the house in Anglesea Road, Dublin 4 which he bought with his wife Beatrice and his grave at Glasnevin Cemetery, including RTÉ Archive material of Behan. As part of the programme, presenter Anne Cassin will talk to Brendan Behan’s daughter Blanaid Behan, writer and director, Peter Sheridan, historian, Donal Fallon and academic, Deirdre McMahon.

ON RADIO

Bowman 8.30: RTÉ Radio 1, 8.30am, Sunday 5th February and 12th February

Across two Sunday mornings John Bowman presents a timely selection of recordings of and about Brendan Behan from RTÉ Archives.

Sunday Miscellany: RTÉ Radio 1, 9.10am, Sunday 5th February

On Sunday Miscellany, Blánaid Behan (pictured below), in Familiar Stranger, writes about the father she barely knew – but whose presence looms large in her life.

“At rare gatherings with my father’s side of the family old Dublin ladies would pat me on the head and say sadly, ‘God love you child, you lost your Da and he was awful young.’ To me at the age of seven or eight, 41 seemed quite ancient! ‘Sure, doesn’t everyone die at 41?’ I wondered. I examined photos for any hint of a likeness. Joan Littlewood, the legendary theatre director in whose hands his play The Hostage won numerous accolades, told me I had his eyes…”

Arena: RTÉ Radio 1, 7pm Monday 6th February

An hour-long special looking at Brendan Behan’s entire career and legacy with guest writer and director Peter Sheridan, writer and historian Donal Fallon, who also presents the Three Castles Burning podcast, and musicians Daoirí Farrell, Anne Buckley and Macdara Yeates.

Behan Ó Beacháin: RTÉ Radio 1, 7.30pm Sunday 12th, 9th and 16th February

A short series focuses on Behan’s writing and spoken words:

Sunday 12th February: Brendan Behan’s New York is his posthumously published book, transcribed from recordings by Behan recounting stories around the city he loved. On its publication it was described as ‘A big broth of a book, full of the late author’s wit and charm’. The programme features actor David Herlihy (who himself performed in a milestone Borstal Boy production directed by Joe Dowling) with a jazz soundtrack contemporary to the period in which Behan spent time in New York.

Sunday 19th February: A focus on the poetry of Brendan Behan or Breandán Ó Beacháin as he called himself when he wrote in Irish. The poems are read by actor Bríd Ní Neachtain (who plays the role of the post-mistress in The Banshees of Inisherin) and Behan’s nephew and literary academic Colbert Kearney.

Sunday 26th February: Behan’s classic short story The Confirmation Suit was as though written to be read aloud with its rhythms and musicality. This coming-of-age story is set in Behan’s inner-city Dublin where he grew up. The 12-year-old narrator is approaching his coming-of-age sacrament of confirmation only to be dashed by the prospect of wearing the dowdy suit that has been made for him for the occasion. The story is specially performed for this programme by Dublin poet and spoken word artist Stephen James Smith.

ONLINE

To mark this special occasion, RTÉ has created a dedicated Brendan Behan themed index – www.rte.ie/brendan-behan/ – which also features on RTÉ Culture. It offers the perfect destination for a rich variety of Behan-related material and includes a range of programming mentioned above. The wider Behan family also features, including Behan’s brothers Brian and Dominic, also writers, his mother Kathleen Behan, a renowned singer, and Brendan Behan’s wife, painter Beatrice Behan (Salkeld). This site dedicated to all things Behan will be curated throughout the year and is one to watch for all Brendan Behan fans.

Commenting RTÉ’s Group Head, Arts and Culture, Ann-Marie Power said: ‘Behan became one of Dublin’s most recognizable citizens, adoring city life, and one of the West End’s and Broadway’s most famous playwrights and celebrities. Notably, he is among few Irish writers whose command of and flair for language found such fluency in Irish and in English. The titles of Brendan Behan’s the The Quare Fellow, The Hostage and Borstal Boy and stand assuredly alongside other seminal works of 20th century Irish literature, including those of James Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, Samuel Beckett, and Mary Lavin, although Behan’s personal life and struggles sometimes overshadow his writing talent.

Now, in Celebrating the Centenary of Brendan Behan RTÉ offers a breath of new and RTÉ Archive programmes across television, radio and online – going beyond the persona and crude stereotype by focusing on the quality of his work, his powerful interpretations of the society of his day and his place in Irish culture.’

ADDITIONAL DETAILS: TELEVISION

Nationwide: RTÉ One, 7pm, Wednesday 8 February

Presenter Anne Cassin looks back on the life and work of Brendan Behan, revisiting many locations of Behan’s city including Russell Street in the north inner city where he grew up, Mountjoy prison, the house in Anglesea Road, Dublin 4 which he bought with his wife Beatrice and his grave at Glasnevin Cemetery. The programme also features his daughter Blanaid Behan; writer and director, Peter Sheridan; historian, Donal Fallon and academic, Deirdre McMahon as well as archives of Behan.

Having grown up in a staunchly republican household in Dublin’s north inner city, Behan joined the IRA at sixteen. He took off to Liverpool on a solo mission. According to Donal Fallon, ‘Behan without sanction from any superior, arrives with a suitcase of explosives and just what he intends to do is still in question; but most likely the plan is to attack Liverpool docks. He is arrested in the process, lodging in an Irish B n B essentially’. The arrest features in the opening pages of his book ‘Borstal Boy’ which is based on Behan’s experiences in a borstal institution in Hollesley Bay in Suffolk.

Blánaid Behan tells Anne Cassin that she feels close to her father when reading this book. ‘I am very fond of Borstal Boy because I think it’s a very much autobiographical account of his early life. And because I was so young when my father died, it gave me an insight into the sort of person he was; really someone who wasn’t much older than I was when I was reading the book.’

Soon after his release, Behan was back behind bars for an attempted shooting in Dublin of two detective guards at an Easter commemoration in Glasnevin. Sentenced to 14 years, he was released after four because of a general amnesty but went on to spend time in and out of Mountjoy for other offences in the 1940s. Whilst inside, the hanging of a fellow prisoner Bernard Kirwan took place in 1943, inspired Behan to write his play ‘The Quare Fellow’ which opened to critical acclaim in London in 1956. Success of another play ‘The Hostage’ followed in 1958, and Behan was the toast of West End and Broadway. Peter Sheridan talks of Behan thrilling New York audiences ‘The idea of an ex IRA man, who had a play on in broadway called ‘The Hostage’; he was a man who could talk; he was a man who could sing; he became an absolute sensation.

Behan adored the attention and loved to enthrall his fans with stories, songs and chat. He even became famous for interrupting his own plays, but soon his fame and drinking caught up with him.

Referring to his final RTÉ interview a few months before he died, Peter Sheridan comments. ‘By the end it was profoundly sad and nobody could look at that and say – ah sure – it was only a fellow having a few drinks. You couldn’t say that about him. Pitiful’.

Deirdre McMahon, who has recently completed her doctorate on the work of Behan says that ‘And if there is anything that we can do in this centenary year is to concentrate on that. Perhaps to move away from the public image of Behan and to reassess what he actually had to offer’.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS: RADIO

Bowman 8.30: RTÉ Radio 1, 8.30am, Sunday 5th February and 12th February

Across two Sunday mornings John Bowman presents a timely selection of recordings of and about Brendan Behan from RTÉ Archives.

Sunday Miscellany: RTÉ Radio 1, 9.10am, Sunday 5th February

On Sunday Miscellany, Blanaid Behan, in Familiar Stranger, writes about the father she barely knew – but whose presence looms large in her life.

“At rare gatherings with my father’s side of the family old Dublin ladies would pat me on the head and say sadly, ‘God love you child, you lost your Da and he was awful young.’ To me at the age of seven or eight, 41 seemed quite ancient! ‘Sure, doesn’t everyone die at 41?’ I wondered. I examined photos for any hint of a likeness. Joan Littlewood, the legendary theatre director in whose hands his play The Hostage won numerous accolades, told me I had his eyes…”

Arena: RTÉ Radio 1, 7pm Monday 6th February

An hour-long special looking at Brendan Behan’s entire career and legacy with guest writer and director Peter Sheridan, writer and historian Donal Fallon, who also presents the Three Castles Burning podcast, and musicians Daoirí Farrell, Anne Buckley and Macdara Yeates.

Behan Ó Beacháin: RTÉ Radio 1, 7.30pm Sunday 12th, 9th and 16th February

A short series focuses on Behan’s writing and spoken words:

Sunday 12 February: Brendan Behan’s New York is his posthumously published book, transcribed from recordings by Behan recounting stories around the city he loved. On its publication it was described as ‘A big broth of a book, full of the late author’s wit and charm’. The programme features actor David Herlihy (who himself performed in a milestone Borstal Boy production directed by Joe Dowling) with a jazz soundtrack contemporary to the period in which Behan spent time in New York.

Sunday 19 February: A focus on the poems of Brendan Behan or Breandán Ó Beacháin as he called himself when he wrote in Irish. The poems are read by actor Bríd Ní Neachtain (who plays the role of the post-mistress in The Banshees of Inisherin) and Behan’s nephew and literary academic Colbert Kearney.

Sunday 26 February: Behan’s classic short story The Confirmation Suit was as though written to be read aloud with its rhythms and musicality. This coming-of-age story is set in Behan’s inner-city Dublin where he grew up. The 12-year-old narrator is approaching his coming-of-age sacrament of confirmation only to be dashed by the prospect of wearing the dowdy suit that has been made for him for the occasion. The story is specially performed for this programme by Dublin poet and spoken word artist Stephen James Smith

ADDITIONAL DETAILS: ONLINE

A specially dedicated Brendan Behan index – www.rte.ie/brendan-behan/ – features on RTÉ Culture offering the perfect destination to locate a variety of Behan-related material and includes a range of the programming mentioned above. The wider Behan family also features, including Behan’s brothers Brian and Dominic, also writers, his mother Kathleen Behan, a renowned singer, and Brendan Behan’s wife, painter Beatrice Behan (Salkeld). This site dedicated to all things Behan will be curated throughout the year and is one to watch for all Brendan Behan fans.