Flann O'Brien

Flann O’Brien, also known as Flann O'Brian (real name Brian O’Nolan, or Brian Ó Nualláin), was an Irish writer and journalist. He wrote in English and Irish. For more than twenty years he edited a satirical column in the Irish Times and wrote a number of plays and screenplays under the pseudonym “Myles na gCopaleen.”

He was born into a bilingual Irish family to the customs and excise officer Michael O’Nuallan (1875–1937), who was interested in the ideas of the Irish Revival of the early twentieth century. From childhood he spoke both Irish and English. His father, Michael O’Nolan, graduated from Dublin University, was interested in theatre, music, and native Irish culture, and worked as an excise officer at customs. His work involved constant transfers. His mother was regarded as an educated and well-read woman, but she could apply her knowledge in practice only in raising her children: there were twelve of them, and Brian was the third. He was educated at home until the customs officer Michael O’Nolan was promoted by the revolution.

He belonged to the first generation of Irish people to receive an education after the introduction of a system that included fairly serious instruction in the Gaelic Irish language. The newly born state of Éire urgently needed educated civil servants who knew Gaelic perfectly. First, there were very few such people, and second, there was not even any official terminology in Gaelic. Both Michael and his brother Ciaran were members of the Gaelic League, that is, they were politically reliable, and the elder brother gave the younger one a little assistance.

In 1923, the large O’Nolan family moved to Dublin, and the head of the family took up a post in the Ministry of Revenue and Customs. The main consequence of this event for Brian and his brothers was admission to the Christian Brothers School on J. Synge Street. Four years later, in 1927, the gifted young man transferred to Blackrock College and, over two years, passed the matriculation examinations and the entrance examinations for higher education. He chose the Faculty of Arts at University College (Dublin University), where from 1929 to 1935 he studied not only Irish, English, and Latin, but also German, and one