The Dublin End: Anecdotes of Brendan Behan on Árainn

As John Brannigan has pointed out, the anecdote as a genre – 'a theatre of memory and an imagined community' – was key to Behan's world and his writing. Brannigan identifies the newspaper column as an especially enabling anecdotal form for Behan. This piece explores that claim through four articles in The Irish Press, all reprinted here, where Behan writes of his experiences and connections on the Aran Islands. True to its theme, the introductory essay is itself anecdotal, using recollections of Behan among the surviving older generation of islanders and paying tribute to Maire O Conghaile whose family gave Behan a roof, at Cill Mhuirbhigh on Árainn, when others on the island declined to.