Not so sober remembrance for Brian O’Nolan 50 years on

It was a sobering thought that, although only five years old, the annual MylesDay had already reached its second major milestone.

First celebrated in 2011, the centenary of Brian O’Nolan’s birth, it was now marking the 50th anniversary of his death, an event that occurred prematurely, if with impeccable comic timing, on April Fools Day 1966.

But there was nothing else sobering about this year’s gathering at Dublin’s Palace Bar where, as is now traditional, readings of his fictional alter egos — Flann O’Brien and Myles na gCopaleen — were accompanied by beer and laughter, in about equal proportions.

If anything, the circumstances of the latest instalment, including the post-election power vacuum, only added to the gaiety.

So when Henry Mitchell revived Myles's catechism of (political) cliché for an open Q & A session, the answers were shouted out en masse and with a fervour no responsorial psalm has ever attracted.

“Which tactile quality do the results show the Government had lost?” he asked the crowd, who roared back, correctly: “Touch”.

And so it went.

Q. “Where was the man said to be when the Government lost touch with him?”

A. “In the Street”.

Q: “But what is the very last thing the public wants now?”

A. “Another Election.”

There were even a few new clichés that the original catechist would not have foreseen, with “Michael Lowry”, for example, among the answers (Q: “With which independent will we have absolutely nothing to do?”).

It could only have amused Myles - who reported his own State funeral at least once - that the 50th anniversary of his actual demise should coincide with the Easter-adjusted centenary of the burning of another great Irish institution: the GPO.

But he might also be tickled by the increased female involvement in his commemorations which, a bit like the Rising, used to be a male preserve.

This year there were several women reading, including Siún Ní Dhúinn, who also flew the flag for the first official language, via an extract from the early Cruiskeen Lawn, which was written in Irish only until the secret of its author’s comic genius demanded to be shared with a wider readership.

The theme in that case was war: a pressing subject in the embryonic years of a column that started in 1940. But another, more lasting topic dominated proceedings in The Palace, one the writer researched all too well.

It was represented here by such Mylesian classics as “Alcoholic ice cream” (performed by Tim Casey), “After Hours Action” (Val O’Donnell), and a drink-soaked extract from Flann O’Brien’s debut novel At Swim-Two-Birds (Phelim Drew).

Literature being thirsty work, meanwhile, the pub did brisk business. It will be no surprise if, after the marathon read-in, at least some listeners were suffering from another Myles invention (Casey again): the “Hangunder”.