BRIAN BEHAN: Brian Behan, who died last week aged 75, was like his brothers, Brendan and Dominic, a writer of some distinction.
He spent most of his life in England where before he turned to writing he was a hod-carrier, a communist and trade-union militant whose activities twice led to imprisonment in the 1950s. He was also a college lecturer and, late in life, took to nude swimming.
Rivalry between the brothers was intense. Brian boasted that he was famous before Brendan; this on the strength of a front-page photograph in the Observer in 1951 that showed him with the Chinese leader, Mao Tse-tung.
Years later he was to say: "I've never worried about following in Brendan's footsteps - because in many ways I'm far better."
Brian's 1964 memoir, With Breast Expanded, provoked Brendan to remark: "Memoirs be damned. You could get that fellow's memoirs on the back of a postage stamp and still have room for the Koran." According to Brian, Brendan and Dominic never saw eye-to-eye. And, indeed, Dominic's critical view of the IRA in his play, Posterity Be Damned (1960), angered Brendan, who retained a soft spot for his old comrades.
After Brendan's death in 1964, relations between Brian and Dominic deteriorated to a sour silence that spanned four decades. Dominic is reputed to have said that he could not understand how Brian had written a book since he had never read one. Brian claimed that Dominic could never live with the fact that he was not as famous as Brendan. Petty stuff, but neither would let go of the bitterness that bound them together in enmity.
The two brothers appeared on RTÉ's Kenny Live in October 1988, trading insults through the host, Pat Kenny. It was a sad spectacle. Dominic was dead within a year; there was no reconciliation. On the contrary, Brian continued to resurrect the feud, in press interviews and in his book The Brothers Behan (1998).
Brian Finbar Oliver Plunkett Behan was born on November 10th, 1926, the son of Stephen (Frank) Behan, a housepainter, and his wife, Kathleen (née Kearney).
As well as Brendan and Dominic, the family included Séamus and Carmel and two brothers from Kathleen's first marriage, Rory and Seán Furlong.
Brian's father had been interned during the Civil War and his mother acted as a courier for the leaders of the 1916 Rising. His uncle, Peadar Kearney, was the author of the national anthem, The Soldiers' Song.
The family lived in Russell Street in Dublin's north inner city, "an island of tenements surrounded by petty middle-class respectability", according to Dominic. They lived rent-free as Brian's paternal grandmother was the landlady.
He was educated at North William Street convent school and later at Francis Street National School when the family moved to Crumlin. He took an instant dislike to his new surroundings. "I hated the deprivation and the loneliness and the crippling boredom. I started mitching from school in my misery." Subsequently he was committed to Artane Industrial School where he spent the worst three years of his life.
After a short stint in the Irish Army, and with little prospect of a job in Ireland, he headed for London to find work. He became a hod-carrier and his trade-union activities, while working on the South Bank complex in 1951, resulted in a short prison sentence. He was jailed again in 1958 for similar activities on the Shell Centre site when there was a mass sacking of 3,500 workers.
Soon after his arrival in London, Brian Behan joined the British Communist Party and in 1951 was part of a delegation that visited eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and China. The contrast between the privileged lifestyles of party officials and the drab lives of ordinary people existing on the edge of poverty shocked him.
In 1956 he was expelled from the party for voicing opposition to the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian uprising. He next joined the Socialist Labour League, a Trotskyite group run in Stalinist fashion by a thuggish Corkman, Gerry Healy. Following a clash with Healy, he was expelled for "deviationism". He was later expelled from the Anarchists (for demanding to know who owned their paper Freedom) and from the British Labour Party (for opposing rent increase in Lambeth).
In 1969 he became a mature student at Sussex University where he read history and English.
He took a full part in student life, accepting invitations from women students to "smoke dope and listen to the Beach Boys". On graduating, he completed a teaching course, which led to his becoming a lecturer in media studies at the London College of Printing, from 1973 to 1990.
In the 1970s he lived on houseboat at Shoreham where he hosted many memorable parties. In 1970, however, five shots were fired at the houseboat. Fortunately, the only casualty was a grapefruit. Neither the culprit nor the motive was ever identified.
Following the publication of his first novel, Time To Go (1979), he published Mother of All the Behans (1984), "an autobiography of Kathleen Behan as told to Brian Behan". This, his most accomplished work, was adapted for the stage by Peter Sheridan, and Rosaleen Linehan starred in the award-winning production. His mother also inspired his second novel, Kathleen.
His first play, Boots for the Footless (1990), prompted protests by Irish groups in London for its extreme "stage-Irishness", sexism and racism, and was slated by the critics. One review described it as "two hours of psychological torture" while The Irish Times critic declared the Dublin production to be "the nearest thing to theatrical necrophilia one could not wish to see".
Brian Behan turned the adverse publicity to his advantage. "A lot of Irish people are terrified of being taken as stage-Irish," he said. "But I regard being stage-Irish as a trade like any other." He portrayed himself as victim of political correctness and a defender of free speech. The play was a box-office success.
Brian Behan married twice. His first marriage in 1951 to Celia Johnson ended in 1975. His second wife, Sally Hill, predeceased him in 2000. The five children of his two marriages survive him.
Brian Behan: born, November 10th, 1926; died, November 2nd, 2002