Brendan Behan Revisited

 

Brendan Behan would have celebrated his 100^th birthday a couple of weeks back if he’d stayed alive. But that was hardly on the cards for a hell-raising, working class writer from Dublin with a drinking problem.

 

Rarely has legend so obscured an artist; you have to wonder why? Well, Behan was larger than life, and in the incestuous, competitive world of Dublin letters he was considered to have jumped the queue. 

 

The fact that he had left school at 14 to become a house painter didn’t help, for Ireland in the 1950s was more class conscious than Calcutta, and Brendan was most definitely from the wrong side of town.

 

From this distance it’s often hard to distinguish the man from the fumes of alcohol that seem to swirl around him.

 

Drinker he was, but one who dealt with undiagnosed diabetes for much of his life. It’s also conveniently unmentioned that he often went “on the dry” for long stretches. 

 

But make no mistake Brendan Behan was a first class writer who turned out two successful Broadway plays and one of the best coming of age memoirs in literature. Try achieving what he did in his 41 years either on or off the bottle – it’s close to impossible. 

 

Oddly enough, Mr. Behan is now far more appreciated in the world of music than theatre. He was an authentic rebel in word and deed, and that counts for a lot in the realm of Celtic Rock - not to mention he wrote The Auld Triangle.

 

While Shane MacGowan never aped Behan, the Dubliner’s influence informed the Pogues singer. And why not, North Side Brendan learned his Gaeilge in jail and delved deep into the “hidden Ireland” of seanchaí and bard long before Shane.

 

It’s hard to understand the man without an appreciation of his Republican roots and beliefs. Behan was an actual rebel who longed for a 32-County Gaelic Republic, hence his attempt to blow up the Liverpool docks during World War II. 

 

He spent 7 years of his short life in British jails and Irish internment camps for his troubles. Those lost years undoubtedly damaged the man and his psyche. 

 

I first heard of him while listening to the BBC news with my grandparents. Brendan had been arrested for outrageous behavior in Toronto. To which my granny muttered, “That fellah should be ashamed of himself, making a show of the country abroad.”

 

Though I wasn’t even a teenager I took note of his name. Anyone who could shake up a calcified Ireland ruled by the church and de Valera was fine by me.

 

His two successful plays, though enormously influential in their day, are rarely performed now. Though there can be a slap-dash quality to them, yet a mighty heart beats within. Set in Mountjoy Jail, The Quare Fellow played a major part in the banning of capital punishment in Ireland and the UK.

 

While The Hostage (adapted from his own An Giall) was way ahead of its time, as was Behan. In those puritan days of the 1950s Behan dealt openly with homosexuality - his flamboyant Princess Grace in The Hostage was undoubtedly the first black queer character to grace Irish theatre.

 

Although barely a footnote in Broadway history now, Brendan was a friend and rival of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Norman Mailer. He is often credited with introducing the hip Alan Ginsberg to uptown audiences, and a young Bob Dylan was so enamored he trailed the Irishman around Greenwich Village hoping for a word.

 

Though drink and diabetes delivered the fatal blow, fame killed Brendan Behan. His need for it was deep-seated and originated in a deprived working class Dublin background. Anything to stand out from the crowd was acceptable to Behan; the fact that critics wrote about him was more important than what they said.

 

A proud man, and the voice of his class and political faction, he was never less than aware that in his later years his talent for writing was slipping away, yet he still longed to be the center of attention.

 

Now that we have passed the centenary of his birth, perhaps we’ll be able to re-evaluate this ever-popular poet of the people, and excavate the man and writer from the shambles of his myth and legend.

Eleanor Rigby and all the lonely people

 Eleanor Rigby changed it all for The Beatles. Up until then they had rarely strayed far from the conventions of pop music: boy meets girl, girl dumps boy, boy gets over her, and meets his true love.

“Ah, look at all the lonely people.” Paul crooned, changing the way The Beatles looked at lyrics and the way we looked at The Beatles.

Like everyone else, I assumed that Eleanor was a widow or a spinster of a certain age. It never occurred to me that Ms. Rigby might be a teenager. Loneliness lay far ahead in the dark and distant future.

How things have changed. A recent poll found that up to 60% of Americans suffer from loneliness. What happened?

I can tell how things changed in Ireland, for I grew up there before television became the beaming god in the corner that has entranced, and even enslaved, whole generations.

Wexford was a small but vibrant town of 12,000 back then. One was at least on nodding acquaintance with 3,000 of those bustling souls, and they knew everyone else.

Loneliness would have been almost impossible in such a setting. Unless you were in a fierce hurry, a walk the length of Main Street could take over an hour, between stopping to chat, sharing a laugh, or wondering aloud would our hurlers ever make it to the All Ireland again.

At home it was much the same, whatever gossip you had picked up on your stroll would be shared, parsed, and interpreted, while there was always an excellent chance that a friend or relation would drop by bringing more tidings.

There was no such thing as age demographics: you were expected to hold your own with aged grandfather and terrible two-year old without discrimination.

As for pubs – there were no young pubs or old pubs, age was not a factor; company –good or bad – was prized above everything.

Wexford, though still a friendly town, has changed. There are probably 50% fewer pubs than in my youth, and as I gazed out my hotel window on a recent visit, Main Street was deserted at 8pm. There were no people to be seen – lonely or otherwise.

Over here in the US, I can chart the growth of loneliness a lot easier. New York, contrary to popular opinion, has always been one of the friendliest of cities and I can say that with some certainty, having spent time with Black 47 in every major US city, and many a minor one too.

Now, it is true that you not only don’t speak to people on New York subways, you don’t even look at them unless you’re sure they’re unaware of the attention. But on the streets there is much interaction, often gruff, but rarely threatening.

And yet, it’s a very different city than the one I first came to in the 1970’s, and it’s hard to ignore the growing wave of loneliness that has seeped into our concrete canyons.

What’s different? Well, two New York institutions are fast disappearing.

Dive bars are going under because of rents. There used to be so many of these homey holes in the wall, with a jukebox to die for, low prices, much laughter, and little in the way of a television.

The neighborhood saloon is also in decline. Remember them, family owned joints where people came to talk over a few beers, replaced now by soulless sports bars with deafening music, and wall-to-wall mesmerizing screens beaming endless games that no one seems to care about.

The real catalyst for loneliness however is the smart phone. Why waste time conversing or making friends when a Kardashian or a flashing ad is just a touch away.

You don’t even have to go in person to the track or a casino anymore – you can gamble your life away without jostling with humans, or interacting with bookie or dealer.

Our circles continue to get smaller, friendship always took effort, we just weren’t aware of it when we were out on the town; there were so many opportunities to exchange a few words or just smile at a stranger.

Instead, we hunker down at home with our phones and don’t even notice that Paul may be crooning in our direction, “Ah, look at all the lonely people.”

Terry Hall - a special Special

 Terry Hall passed away recently.

“Terry who?” You might say.

Perhaps, it would ring a bell were I to say Terry Hall, singer with The Specials?

Terry was never a household name, but 40 years ago The Specials shook things up in the UK. Then again, put a dance floor and a crowd in front of them, and it was hard to top The Specials.

They were leaders of the 2-Tone movement: bands with black and white members who favored pork-pie hats, two-tone Tonik suits, and blasted out a danceable mix of Jamaican Ska and English Punk.

Many of these outfits hailed from Midlands’ cities like Birmingham, Coventry, and Wolverhampton.

This bleak area had once been part of the industrial backbone of the UK, and provided decent jobs for workers and considerable earnings for the investing classes.

Such blessings were far removed from the inhabitants of British Commonwealth islands such as Jamaica and Trinidad, where per capita income was low and unemployment high.

But there was a silver lining. Back in the days before their countries gained independence - natives of Jamaica and Trinidad could claim domicile in the UK on account of their British Commonwealth citizenship.

In the 1950’s many moved to the Midlands where there was promise of work in car assembly plants and other light engineering factories.

The empire, as it were, came home to roost. The Caribbean people brought with them their music, and eventually those Harry Belafonte type island songs morphed into Jamaican Ska and Trinidadian Soca.

By the time Terry Hall was a boy these harder edged rhythms had sunk deep roots in the immigrant streets of industrialized Britain.

Around the same time, a gentleman who would later make a name for himself in the annals of Ulster Unionism, made a speech in Birmingham in 1968 where he declared himself full of foreboding… “I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood.”

In essence, Enoch Powell was warning of the consequences of mass Commonwealth immigration to the United Kingdom.

Though Powell was consequently sacked from the shadow cabinet of the Conservative Party, the cat was out of the bag. What before had been whispered in kitchens and pubs was now spoken freely. A certain section of the lily-white British population wanted no more part of black and brown immigration.

Rising rates of unemployment did not help the national mood, especially when accompanied by strikes and labor unrest.

And then came the Punk explosion of 1976 with The Sex Pistols declaring “anarchy in the UK” and bemoaning “no future” in England.

Bono would later declare that all one needed was” three chords and the truth,” but three chords were more than enough to stir things up on the grimy streets of the Midlands.

Despite Powell’s right wing rantings the black and white youth of the Midlands had grown up together and learned through neglect and lack of opportunity that color is only skin deep.

They loved the Ska and Calypso music favored by their parents. Why not rev it up to Punk tempos?

Before you knew it, 2-Tone music had arrived allied to a similarly named record company that was willing to put promotional muscle behind it.

The beat was still rock steady but there was now a frantic danceable edge to it, curried by a sense of racial community. Who was interested in confronting cops and Conservatives on the street when you could skank the night away in clubs with your black and white sisters and brothers?

Eventually even Enoch Powell got the message and slunk off to his spiritual homeland in reactionary Ulster; meanwhile The Specials had a solid run of top ten hits, including, Gangsters, Ghost Town, and the still affecting A Message To You, Rudy. They didn’t need to over-emphasize political songs, their colors were nailed to the mast by the mixed hues of the band’s members.

Terry Hall went on to have a long musical career, though he wasn’t interested in celebrity or fame. Rather than cavort with super models, he preferred a quiet night at home “looking at the telly.” 

 

But, at a time of potential upheaval and racial divide, he and his crew ran Enoch Powell out of town, and prevented rivers of blood flowing in 2-Tone Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton.

Alexis Mac Allister and the route to Argentina

 

Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe may have been the brightest stars of the 2022 World Cup Final, but BBC Sports readers rated Argentina’s Alexis Mac Allister man of the match.

 

Remember him – the red-bearded midfielder who seemed to be everywhere during arguably the best World Cup final ever?

 

How did a man with obvious Irish roots end up playing for Argentina? It’s no mystery around Westmeath and Wexford. Up to 50,000 had fled these and other Leinster counties for Buenos Aires between 1830 and 1890, and it was not uncommon for their Spanish speaking descendents to return home on Irish “grand tours.”

 

There’s even a ballad called The Kilrane Boys that celebrates 12 young men from South County Wexford who left for Argentina on April 13, 1844. One of them, John Murphy, did so well the town of Murphy was named in his honor in Santa Fe Province. 

 

“Foul British laws are the whole cause of our going far away;
From the fruits of our hard labour they defraud us here each day…” the ballad states.

 

One of the quirks of Irish emigration to Argentina is that most of those taking that long voyage south possessed some money, thus tending to do well once they reached their destination.

 

They were mostly from farming stock and well used to working with cattle and sheep. Long lonely hours out on the pampas posed no problems to these Irish gauchos, and as land was cheap and fertile, they soon bought ranches and prospered.

 

They had been encouraged to try Argentina by their parish priests who were not admirers of the No Nothing, Protestant ruling elite that Irish immigrants had to contend with in the US. 

 

The clergy also had a say in practically choking the flow of Irish to Argentina in 1889 on account of the “Dresden Affair.” Over 1700 less well-to-do Irish had been recruited to a fraudulent immigration scheme and were transported on the City of Dresden SS to Buenos Aires. 

 

Many died on the voyage and those who survived were often sent to undeveloped areas where they were expected to find work and shelter for themselves.

 

Thomas Croke, the fiery Archbishop of Cashel, warned those thinking of emigrating, “if they value their happiness to never set foot in the Republic of Argentina.”

 

And so the flow ended, but a trickle of Wexford men still traveled there, mostly as merchant marines, for Argentina in the early to mid-20^th Century was a major meat exporter.

 

That’s how my father came to know this vast country and the Irish people who raised cattle and sheep out on the pampas. He loved those mighty plains and enjoyed the hospitality of the descendents of the Wexford emigrants.

 

At a time when Ireland’s major export was people, he wanted to move our family to Buenos Aires. My mother, however, felt that she needed to stay in Wexford and help her recently widowed father run his business. 

 

But my father never lost his love for Argentina. He often supplied fine Wexford ash hurleys to the Buenos Aires Hurling Club. This was to lead to an incident during the Troubles when British customs officers sought to confiscate his stash of camáns fearing they were arms.

 

Did Margaret Thatcher suspect they might be used to repel the British invasion of Las Malvinas (Falkland Islands)?

 

I got my own opportunity to visit Argentina on a Black 47 tour in 2000. To our amazement we were booked into the Buenos Aires Opera House and got to stride the same boards as Pavarotti and Caruso.

 

Our gig in the city of Rosario (birthplace of Che Guevara Lynch) coincided with a national Irish convention - replete with a thatched cottage bar, and there I got to meet and mingle with the progeny of the 19^th Century immigrants.

 

Many did not speak English, but there was no mistaking their genes as we drank Guinness, danced and sweated, our faces red from the blazing sun, and talked about “home.”

 

Some of them fondly remembered my father – the hombre with the hurleys; and in an odd way I felt a kinship with Alexis Mac Allister as I watched him triumph at the World Cup Final. Viva Argentina!

The Hidden Christmas Ireland

 

Whenever I go back home I always keep a weather eye open for the hidden Ireland. 

 

Alas, I rarely catch a glimpse of this roiling presence in the modern European Ireland. In my boyhood, however, I often stumbled upon it.

 

I was blessed by being close to two sets of grandparents. In fact I grew up in a draughty old house in Wexford town owned by my maternal grandfather.

 

Thomas Hughes, born in 1880, believed in ghosts, banshees, and all manner of púca, as did many of his friends who lived in the nearby countryside. These rural folk considered the veil that shielded the living from the dead to be very flimsy.

 

When we visited their remote farmhouses on Sunday afternoons, the talk was so spiked with references to hauntings and fairy abductions I rarely strayed far from the open-hearth fire. The shadows in those old kitchens seemed to throb with life, and you could almost touch the hidden Ireland lurking behind them.

 

My paternal grandfather, Lar Kirwan, was a prosperous cattle dealer with a substantial farm just outside Wexford town. A man of “scant imagination,” as my Granny put it, he had no truck with any kind of superstition. Maggie Kirwan, on the other hand, recognized that all living things had a soul, and was wary of upsetting the least of them.

 

Only fitting then that in the small yard outside her kitchen window the hidden Ireland sprang into view one overcast St. Stephen’s Day afternoon.

 

Coincidentally, the legendary Irish horse, Arkle, was contesting the King George VI Steeplechase at Kempton Park that same afternoon.

 

My grandfather was a racehorse enthusiast and this man of “scant imagination” liked nothing better than to wager “a few bob,” especially when his favorite jockey, Pat Taffe, was aboard the great Arkle.

 

And so we were all gathered in the kitchen after savoring the remains of the Christmas turkey. Even my normally saturnine grandfather was smiling at the prospect of watching this three-mile contest on his new television.

 

When, lo and behold, the sound of drums and cymbals erupted outside in the yard. 

 

“Are they mad,” Lar Kirwan hissed in fury, “at twenty minutes to bloody three on race day?”

 

He had no idea what this commotion signaled, but it would have to be dealt with forthwith, for the King George VI Stakes would be off and running at 3pm sharp.

 

At that moment a hatchet-faced man, bearing a marked resemblance to Eamon de Valera despite wearing a ladies bonnet and tartan shawl, peered speculatively in the window at us.

 

“’Tis the Wren Boys!”  My Granny announced in trepidation.

 

“Get them out of here now!” Her spouse ferociously muttered.

 

“How can we? Sure they’d put a curse on us and say we were the meanest family in County Wexford.”

“Where’s the gun?”

 

“Gun, how are you! Didn’t you order it out of the house in case they thought we were in the IRA?”

 

But neither armored cars, nor tanks, nor guns would have stopped these unruly mummers, one of whom was cavorting around with an oversized pair of ladies bloomers pulled tight over his cavalry twill trousers. 

 

Meanwhile, a third more soberly dressed gentleman rattled a cage containing a forlorn and frightened wren.

 

The Wren Boys hollered to the overcast skies that they were the descendents of Saint George and were about to slay the dragon that was threatening the many bullocks my grandfather was fattening on his farm.

 

It was like the earth had opened and the past poured forth before our eyes. I could make little sense of what else they were roaring about, but I could tell they expected to be rewarded for their efforts.

 

My grandfather squinted at his watch as Arkle cantered down to the starting line and the bloomered offspring of Saint George danced a jig in the kitchen yard. My grandmother burrowed desperately inside her purse. 

 

Suddenly the Wren Boys froze outside our window - their hands outstretched in demand. 

 

My Grandfather sank back in his armchair in relief as the flag went up and Arkle galloped into an early lead.

 

My grandmother handed over some pound notes in grateful supplication, and the Wren Boys melted back into the world they came from – the hidden Ireland.

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST/A CHILD'S CHRISTMAS IN WALES

 The Ghost of Christmas Past seems to be ever present this time of year – particularly for emigrants.

Think of it, do you fixate on home around St. Patrick’s Day, Memorial Day, or any other such holiday? 

But every time I hear Jingle Bells, I’m swept back to Wexford’s Main Street where I’m seven years old again staring at a blinking Christmas tree, my face lit up with delight.

I may have need of that memory, for every third Sunday in December for the last 17 years I’ve improvised a three-hour Yuletide show on Celtic Crush/SiriusXM. Much of the show is devoted to music but the audience has come to expect a journey down my memory lane.

Oddly enough, I’ve found the best way to cater to all tastes is through poetry, and often the more obscure, the better.

I don’t know who wrote the traditional Kerry Carol, but I suspect it was a woman and what a way with words she had.

Scuab an t-urlár agus glan an teallach

‘s coimead na gríasaigh beo

Ar eagla go dtiocfhaidh siad anocht,

Agus an domhan ‘na chodladh go suan!

It no longer seems to matter that the poem is in Irish, since so many listeners are familiar with at least cúpla focail and love the sound of the old tongue. Still I usually offer the translation:

Brush the floor and clean the hearth,

And set the fire to keep,

For they might visit us tonight

When all the world’s asleep!

Patrick Kavanagh is another who can ferry you back in time to a long gone rural Irish childhood.

“My father played the melodion

Outside at our gate;

There were stars in the morning east,

And they danced to his music.

Across the wild bogs his melodion called

To Lennons and Callans.

As I pulled on my trousers in a hurry

I knew some strange thing had happened.”

James Joyce too can summons up memories of Christmas, though to me he’s much more about sculling pints on Bloomsday outside Ulysses pub on Stone Street. Still, he always brings me face to face with that rarity, an Irish White Christmas.

“A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves.”

Oh, to be able to conjure such an adjective for the broad majestic Shannon!

But it’s Dylan Thomas from Wales who really nails the poetry of Christmas for me. Those from New York can do a pilgrimage to The White Horse Tavern on Hudson Street in honor of the man.

For it’s there the poet departed none so gently into that good night after tossing back a multitude of whiskeys - his final words, “18! That’s a record.” Perhaps that why his “Child’s Christmas in Wales” always captures the innate tipsiness of the season.

“One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.”

He effortlessly summonses a carefree boyhood in Mrs. Prothero’s garden where he and her son Jim bombard “cold and callous cats” with snowballs.

“Wolves and birds the color of red-flannel petticoats” whisk by as Aunt Dosie downs 3 aspirin and Aunt Hannah hits the parsnip wine, before the boy finally turns the gas down, crawls into bed and “says some words to the holy darkness” before sinking into dreamless sleep.

Meanwhile, you can watch this wonderful poem spring to life on the magical stage of The Irish Repertory Theatre until December 31st. I’ll be there in my Santa hat, sipping mulled wine, do join me.

Happy Christmas!

Chickie Donohue and The Greatest Beer Run Ever

 I have no idea when I first met John “Chickie” Donohue, but it was sometime back in the 20^thCentury.

Where I met him should be easier, but again it could have been up in his native Inwood, in the wild and wooly Bronx, on the shores of Rockaway, or in any of the city’s teeming Irish bars where union members, immigration advocates, and those concerned with the struggle in Ireland congregated.

Even back then Chickie was an urban legend, and I never doubted that he had delivered cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon to his fellow Inwoodians serving in Vietnam.

It was, after all, an unusual war. Hadn’t my friend, Brian Heron, grandson of James Connolly, also shipped out as a merchant marine to check out first hand the scene in Saigon.

Indeed, didn’t Pierce Turner and myself receive a gilded offer to front a version of the 1910 Fruitgum Company and do a tour of American bases in that war-torn country? We only turned it down because we felt it would be beneath our artistic standards to perform Simon Says and other such bubblegum standards for cavorting troops.

But Chickie stood apart: in a time of gathering anti-war protest he was on a mission of honor to show his friends that the guys back home in Doc Fiddler’s bar supported them and their service.

Thus, in November 1967, did this ex-marine set out for Nam on board a vessel carrying arms from New York to Qui Nhon. Some months later, he delivered his first beer to MP Tom Collins, a childhood buddy, then serving in the conflict.

Stumbling through the fog of war, he soon thereafter handed over cans of Blue Ribbon to Rick Duggan and Kevin McLoone amidst the Battle of Khe Sanh. Then away with him to Saigon where he finished his sacred mission by offering some sorely needed suds to Bobby Pappas.

As luck would have it, he missed his plane back to the US because of a little Viet Cong diversion called the Tet Offensive, but eventually he made it home to Doc Fiddlers, mission accomplished.

These and many more adventures are documented in the film The Greatest Beer Run Ever that you have to see. Talk about a shaggy dog story!

But it’s so much more, for Chickie’s beer crusade caused this once hard-hat war supporter to reconsider his opinion and see the Vietnam War for what it really was – a brutal, ill-advised, American disaster.

By the time I met him Chickie was political director of Sandhogs Local 147, Laborers International Union of North America and a progressive force around NYC.

It may sound sacrilegious but he sometimes reminded me of another notable New Yorker – Father Michael Judge OFM. Each devoted total attention when conversing with you – a rare thing in the bustling barrooms we frequented. Both men could also see right through whatever psychological façades you had erected, plus when the occasion demanded they offered incisive and life-changing advice.

Whatever about Fr. Mychal, you could tell that Chickie’s counsel had come at a cost. I never gave it much thought at the time, but on reflection it’s hard to imagine that he didn’t confront many hard truths during his jaunt around Vietnam.  

Saint or psychiatrist, that’s Chickie for you, and thankfully he’s still out there  on our streets spreading his brand of casual joy and camaraderie with a weather-beaten smile.

I often wonder if New York City is losing some of its magic, as a generation of contrarian characters the like of Pete Hamill, Brian Herron, Frank McCourt, Brian Mór and so many others fades away.

But then you think of Chickie Donohue heading off to Vietnam with a sack full of Pabst Blue Ribbon under his arm, and you know that as long as there’s an Inwood, Rockaway, Woodlawn, Bay Ridge, or Tottenville, there’ll be unlikely heroes aplenty to take their place.

Here’s to Blue Ribbon, friendship, and The Greatest Beer Run Ever, a movie about one of us, and to hell with all the suits and psychotics down in DC dreaming up their wars of choice and misadventure that they’ll never serve in.