ramonmercado
CyberPunk
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2003
- Messages
- 58,207
- Location
- Eblana
More tales of Flann, the full article also features Patrick Kavanagh.
... Strange to say, this is not the only anecdote I know involving a famous Irish writer and a hedge in Stillorgan.
Or maybe the other hedge was in Donnybrook. Either way, it involves Flann O’Brien, who circa 1960 moved from Belmont Avenue to Waltersland Road, the last of his many addresses.
When Maebh Long was compiling what became The Collected Letters of Flann O’Brien a few years ago, she put a call out to Irish Times readers who might still be harbouring missives that had so far escaped the archivists.
One of the replies was from Orla Davin Carroll, who as a child was a near neighbour of the real-life Flann, Brian O’Nolan, a good friend of her parents and a regular visitor. Family lore had it that he had first dropped in when mistaking their door for his. He also wrote them several letters, including one from hospital in his last days, which made it into Maebh’s collection.
Orla’s memories of O’Nolan were gratifyingly at odds with the picture presented by his biographer Anthony Cronin and others. Cronin recalled a man who, like many great comic writers, never laughed and rarely said anything funny. But on the contrary, Orla insisted, there was always laughter when he visited.
There was often drink too, of course. Hence one night when he left their house to go home and, short as the journey was, didn’t complete it without mishap. Sometime later, the Davin-Carrolls looked out to find that he had crashed into their hedge and was now asleep there. So they sent him on his way again, but the hole in the hedge lingered long afterwards, as a kind of monument.
Not an inapt monument for a man of many pseudonyms, whose real self was permanently elusive. On a related note, the best proposal I have yet seen for a Flann O’Brien statue in Dublin (a still unrealised project) is David O’Kane’s idea of a wide-brimmed hat connected to an overcoat and other items of apparel, but with no body inside. Backlit from below, it would nevertheless project O’Nolan’s unmistakable silhouette on to a wall decorated with his writings.
Attempts to analyse the man and his work continue; the call for papers has just gone out to scholars wishing to address the sixth biennial conference of the International Flann O’Brien Society. Pandemic be damned, it is scheduled to take place at Boston College in April, the first time it will have been held outside Europe.
Keynote speakers include the aforementioned Maebh Long, Kevin Barry, Fintan O’Toole, Catherine Flynn, and myself. I don’t know what I’m speaking about yet, but “The Literary Hedges of South Dublin” is an early contender. In the meantime, anyone else who wants to present a paper should consult sites.bc.edu/flannobriensix/ for details and deadline. ...
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/...urban-privet-for-well-oiled-writers-1.4746047
... Strange to say, this is not the only anecdote I know involving a famous Irish writer and a hedge in Stillorgan.
Or maybe the other hedge was in Donnybrook. Either way, it involves Flann O’Brien, who circa 1960 moved from Belmont Avenue to Waltersland Road, the last of his many addresses.
When Maebh Long was compiling what became The Collected Letters of Flann O’Brien a few years ago, she put a call out to Irish Times readers who might still be harbouring missives that had so far escaped the archivists.
One of the replies was from Orla Davin Carroll, who as a child was a near neighbour of the real-life Flann, Brian O’Nolan, a good friend of her parents and a regular visitor. Family lore had it that he had first dropped in when mistaking their door for his. He also wrote them several letters, including one from hospital in his last days, which made it into Maebh’s collection.
Orla’s memories of O’Nolan were gratifyingly at odds with the picture presented by his biographer Anthony Cronin and others. Cronin recalled a man who, like many great comic writers, never laughed and rarely said anything funny. But on the contrary, Orla insisted, there was always laughter when he visited.
There was often drink too, of course. Hence one night when he left their house to go home and, short as the journey was, didn’t complete it without mishap. Sometime later, the Davin-Carrolls looked out to find that he had crashed into their hedge and was now asleep there. So they sent him on his way again, but the hole in the hedge lingered long afterwards, as a kind of monument.
Not an inapt monument for a man of many pseudonyms, whose real self was permanently elusive. On a related note, the best proposal I have yet seen for a Flann O’Brien statue in Dublin (a still unrealised project) is David O’Kane’s idea of a wide-brimmed hat connected to an overcoat and other items of apparel, but with no body inside. Backlit from below, it would nevertheless project O’Nolan’s unmistakable silhouette on to a wall decorated with his writings.
Attempts to analyse the man and his work continue; the call for papers has just gone out to scholars wishing to address the sixth biennial conference of the International Flann O’Brien Society. Pandemic be damned, it is scheduled to take place at Boston College in April, the first time it will have been held outside Europe.
Keynote speakers include the aforementioned Maebh Long, Kevin Barry, Fintan O’Toole, Catherine Flynn, and myself. I don’t know what I’m speaking about yet, but “The Literary Hedges of South Dublin” is an early contender. In the meantime, anyone else who wants to present a paper should consult sites.bc.edu/flannobriensix/ for details and deadline. ...
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/...urban-privet-for-well-oiled-writers-1.4746047