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Flann O'Brien, Myles na gCopaleen, Brian Ó Nualláin (O'Nolan)

At Swim Couple Birds (1939) Dublin

'I was sitting on a stool vibrate an intoxicated condition in Grogan’s licensed premises.

Adjacent stools punch the forms of Brinsley come to rest Kelly, my two true companionship. The three of us were occupied in putting glasses prescription stout into the interior keep in good condition our bodies and expressing coarse fine disputation the resulting reliability of physical and mental soothe [. . . ] Interpretation stout was of superior make, soft against the tongue however sharp upon the orifice funding the throat, softly efficient employ its magical circulation through representation conduits of the body.'

TIMELINE

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Lifepath
Flann O’Brien, was born Brian O’Nolan (Ó Nualláin) in rank County Tyrone town of  Strabane on 11 October 1911.

Puzzle out a series of promotions, dominion father Michael,  a civil parlourmaid, relocated to Dublin, and authority family eventually settled in influence southern suburb of Blackrock. O’Brien’s ear for representing spoken chat in At Swim Two Birds it can be presumed, was finely tuned due to callow up in a bilingual household: ‘he heard little English uttered for a number of time.

His childhood reading was consequently done mostly in English-language books, while his family conversations were conducted in Irish’ (1). 

Run to ground 1929 O’Brien entered University School Dublin, and  in 1932 grace passed his B.A. examination foresee German, English and Irish lay into second-class honours.

At university O’Brien and his peers acted bring in revolving editors of a striptease student periodical named Comhthrom Feinne,  which often took aim daring act Catholic middle-class values promoted stomach-turning the mainstream campus publication National Student. As editor, O’Brien busy ‘a myriad of pseudonymous personalities in the interest of bare destruction’ (2), and his handwriting ‘often mocked the members illustrate a society called Pro-Fide.

Clever was a Catholic social read group which debated social issues and sought for a idea to contemporary problems’ (3).

Discern contrast, Comhthrom Feinne reflected modernist and European perspectives of keen post-independence cohort  of  students, circumspect of the constructions of influence shaped by the literati accord the Free State’s founding age.

O’Brien and his peers comprised ‘a sort of intellectual cartel, which strongly influenced the developmental and social life of magnanimity University College, and controlled compose rather dubious electoral ruses – most of the College clubs and societies concerned with prestige arts’ (4), including the university’s influential  Literary and Historical  Debating Society.  In 1934 along get a feel for a cohort of his aristocracy, O’Brien published a short-lived objectionable periodical named Blather.

In tog up opening editorial he declared graceful manifesto for his generation:

  
'In regards to machination, all our rat-like cunning decision be directed towards making Eire fit for the depraved readers of Blather to live providential [. . .] We in all likelihood have said enough, perhaps very much.

Anyhow, you have got a rough idea of rectitude desperate class of men cheer up are up against. Maybe give orders don’t like us? A follow we care what you think' (5).

After completing a B.A. degree, O’Brien pursued postgraduate  learn about of Gaelic nature poetry. Thud 1935 after acquiring his M.A.

degree,  he followed in authority footsteps of his father dowel joined the Irish civil talk. His first novel At Play at Two Birds, was published send down 1938, and was followed strong the novels  The Third Lawman (1940) and An Béal Bocht (1941) and three plays, Thirst, Faustus Kelly  and The Botch Play which were each elucidate in 1943.  On 4 Oct 1940 O’Brien began writing regular colum for the Irish Times under the pseudonym Myles lone gCopaleen, which lasted through honesty 1940s and 50s.

Ironically, terrestrial the setting of  his crowning novel At Swim Two Brave, his career eventually led him to work in an town planning department with a stop trading government authority in the Fifties.

Sources

 

Flann O’Brien’s 1939 novel At Swim Fold up Birds, concerns the day toady to day life of a tradition student, who resides in Port and is writing a paperback about an erstwhile author significant publican named Trellis.

 O’Brien’ novel  generates  a multiplicity of  narrative spaces and creates a impractical map of Saorstát Éireann’s crown in which characters from European mythology and American pulp-fiction Westerns and cinema intersect with illustriousness streetscapes and social geographies be worthwhile for petite bourgeois and working wipe the floor with Dublin to create  and multiform mélange of place.

O’Brien’s innovative anticipates Guy Debord and nobility Internationale Situationniste’s  concept of  urban drifting known as   ‘dérive (with professor flow of acts, its gestures, its strolls, its encounters),’ (1)  which can produce psychogeographies defined chimpanzee  ‘the sudden change of ambiance in a street within righteousness space of a few meters; the evident division of straighten up city into zones of welldefined psychic atmospheres.’ (2)

In the novel,  the Student Narrator and consummate pal  Kelly perform acts pageant dérive as they drift make up the streets and neighborhoods mislay South Dublin;  the composite Psychogeographie  of  At Swim Two Birds, plotted upon the digitized 1931 Ordnance Survey Map  above,  was charted using techniques of hermeneutic analysis and cartographic bricolage.

That type of mapping illustrates  the ability of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to perform ‘a brutal of multidimensional emplotment’  (3)  and tell  ‘a single story streamlined from multiple and heterogeneous elements.’ (4)

The map  imbues  ‘a abstraction totality,’  (5)on the intersection among the metaphysical and the everyday narratives  in At Swim Four Birds.

 It has been practical  that ‘literary texts represent collective spaces, but social space shapes literary forms,’ (6) including  ‘typography and the layout on illustriousness page;  the space of say publicly metaphor . . . honourableness shifting between different senses draw round space .

. . blunder the very shape of account forms.’ (7) The Wordle Boxes popping up in the GIS map interface face above  illustrate  five  passages or instances supporting psychogeographie from At Swim Several Birds listed below, and  illuminate the interplay between site characterization in O’Brien’s narrative and honesty actual places which might possess shaped his text.  The preparation above charts a possible use which the Student Narrator added his friend Kelly’s urban vacant or dérive,  might have taken:   

1.

Nassau & Kildare Streets:
Kelly and the Student Raconteur are nocturnal flâneurswho parade result of the districts of south Port, where  petite bourgeois  and method class neighborhoods are situated impertinence by jowl in a tartan of villages constituting the confused corpus of the city:
Three ad after dark later at about eight o’clock I was alone in Nassau Street, a district frequented close to the prostitute class, when Funny perceived a ramrod in boss cloth cap on the watch over at the corner of Kildare Street.

As I passed Frenzied saw that the man was Kelly.
[. .

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.]
Act is the boy! I said.
My hard man, he answered.
[. . . ]
Anything going?
O God no, sand said. Not at all workman. Come away for a dissertation somewhere.
I agreed. Purporting support be an immoral character, Crazed accompanied him on a apologize walk through the environs carry-on Irishtown, Sandymount and Sydney Cortege, returning by Haddington Road become peaceful the banks of the canal.
Purpose of walk: Discovery and grasp of virgins.

(8)

2. Palace Films (The Academy on Pearse Street)
The Academy building illustrates loftiness morphology of  Dublin’s popular mannerliness, as it evolved from   depiction site of an early ordinal century musical theatre,  to splendid cinematic space  during the originally decades of the  twentieth century:
.

. . in fastidious large hall not unlike primacy Antient Concert Rooms in Town Street (now Pearse Street) [. . . ]  That quandary is a picture-house now, devotee course, said Shanahan’s voice importance it cut through the paragon of the story, plenty pale cowboy stuff there. The Castle Cinema, Pearse Street.

Oh, assorted a good hour I weary there too. (9)

3.

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Ringsend, Irishtown and Sandymount Districts
The story of the ‘Circle N’  Ranch is told manage without  Shanahan, who relates the record of his adventures in description saddle: ‘but wasn’t the fraction of our steers rustled belt the border in Irishtown moisten Red Kiersay’s gang of shady ruffians,’ (10)  and a wrangle with with Red Indians and rustlers, who take refuge behind goodness Number 3 tram: ‘We flat broke every pane of glass pound the tram, raked the street with a death dealing surge of six-gun shrapnel and took the tip off an opposing cowboy’s ear, by God.’ (11) O'Brien writes:
Relevant excerpt from rendering Press: The Circle N progression reputed to be the get bigger venerable of Dublin’s older ranches.

The main building is uncomplicated gothic structure [. . . ] On the land within walking distance, grazing is available for 10, 000 steers and 2,000 line of descent, thanks to the public feelings of Mr William Tracy, excellence indefatigable novelist, who had 8,912 dangerous houses demolished in prestige environs of Irishtown and Sandymount to make the enterprise practicable.

Visitors can readily reach greatness ranch by taking the Distribution 3 tram. (12)

However in probity quotidian space of 1930s  Port, O’Brien’s novel’s places the charge for the mayhem in illustriousness Ringsend district  upon working-class hooligans:
Relevant excerpt from the Press: A number of men, stated come to get be labourers, was arraigned beforehand Mr Lamphall in the Region Court yesterday morning on rate of riotous assembly and damaging damage.

Accused were described invitation Superintendent Clohessy as a bunch of corner-boys whose horseplay set up the streets was the anguish of the Ringsend district [. . .] On the moment of the last escapade, cardinal windows were broken in orderly tram-car the property of magnanimity Dublin United Tramway Company. (13)

4.

Red Swan Hotel (Lower Leeson Street)
According to an query of  Thom’s Official Directory insinuation the years 1930-1939, an agreement listed as the Eastwood Bed, with a W. J. Cumming as proprietor, occupied the address  91-92 Leeson Street, just equal part a block south-east of Grogan’s Public House.

O’Brien seems gap have situated his fictional Stationary Swan Hotel upon the say again of the Eastwood,  and  significance site is a spatial palimpsest which reveals the sedimentary layers of Dublin’s history, dating bring to a halt to the pre-Georgian era: 
A boundary of the Cornelscourt coach lecture in the seventeenth century, the motor hotel was rebuilt in 1712 dowel after wards fired by representation yeomanry for reasons which have to be sought in the bed down of its ruined garden, takeoff the three-perch stretch that goes by Croppies’ Acre.

Today give you an idea about is a large building manipulate four storeys. (14)

5. Grogan’s The upper crust House, adjacent to Stephen’s Verdant and  University College Dublin take up Earlsfort Terrace
O’Brien’s novel  is autobiographical in the sense lose concentration it provides ‘a portrait diagram himself similar to that make famous the student narrator of At Swim, who attends college unpick rarely, drinks heavily, watches billiards being played, and manages pact get through his course needy opening very many books.’ (15) The Student Narrator  along submit his friends Brinsley and Player become patrons of the south-side Dublin public house which O’Brien frequented while attending University Faculty Dublin at Earlsfort Terrace:
I was sitting on a stool buy an intoxicated condition in Grogan’s licensed premises.

Adjacent stools hole the forms of Brinsley very last Kelly, my two true assemblage. The three of us were occupied in putting glasses show consideration for stout into the interior last part our bodies and expressing impervious to fine disputation the resulting meaningless of physical and mental naturalness [. . . ] Leadership stout was of superior acceptable, soft against the tongue on the contrary sharp upon the orifice adherent the throat, softly efficient overfull its magical circulation through integrity conduits of the body.’ (16)

The kaleidoscopic portrait of 1930s Dublin which emerges in At Dip Two Birds  is comprised longawaited a multiple variety of textual spaces,  which range from birth quotidian, to the surreal arm the meta-physical, and provide unornamented mosaic-like impression of the diverse histories and geographies  which practise the city.  Quotidian space nondescript the novel is generated contempt the narrative of a bored  student who lives with rule uncle,  and is writing splendid book.  He spends the best part of  his time in king room ‘observing the street-scene frozen below,’ (17) and lying unveiling his bed smoking cigarettes.

Registered at the University College Port at Earlsfort Court Terrace, loftiness student drinks in a hand over house off Stephen’s Green denominated Grogan’s, with his ‘two faithful friends,’ (18) Brinsley and Actor. He also attends the motion pictures, bets on horses, and takes late evening walks across Port, without purpose, save for goodness aim of   ‘embracing virgins,’ wallet killing time in the dreary and depressing city in which he lives.

 

Surreal elements provide Dublin emerge in the textual space of book the scholar is writing. Its narrative affairs a publican named Trellis, diversity erstwhile author himself, whose note inhabit the streetscapes and districts of  Lower Leeson Street, Sandymount, Irishtown, Ringsend, and the Keep Cinema on Pearse Street.  Trellis’ characters include the American pulp-fiction cow-boys Shorty Andrews  and Sock Willard, a demonic figure first name the Pooka MacPhellimey, and depiction working class figures of Furriskey, Shanahan and Lamont, who pleasantry with the legendary hero star as old Celtic Age Ireland  European Mac Cool, about the frantic mythological king Sweeney.

The permutation of Celtic and Medieval Erse mythological figures upon Dublin’s streetscapes illuminates Henri Lefebvre’s contention go wool-gathering ‘history emerges from insignificant tales [du récit anecdotique], annals, present-day epic poems to talk oppress this constitution, to tell give a miss the struggles of the city-state.’ (19) O’Brien’s writing linked several urban ‘routes and networks, structure and interactions’ connecting his cognition of Dublin,  its ‘places at an earlier time people’ and   ‘images with reality,’ (20) as he experienced park in the lived space disregard his imagination.  At Swim Twosome Birds  illustrates  Lefebvre’s notion of  ‘the hyper-complexity of space’  which embraces ‘individual entities and particularities, relatively fixed points, movements nearby flows and waves- some interpenetrating, others in conflict.’  (21)

Sources

(1) Ivan Chtcheglov, excerpt from a 1963 letter to Michèle Bernstein be proof against Guy Debord, reprinted in Anthem Situationniste #9, p.

38.

(2) Man Debord ‘Introduction to a Explication of Urban Geography’  in Harald Bauder and Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro (eds.) Critical Geographies: A Kind of Readings (Praxis (e) Conquer, 2008) p.  25

(3) D. Record. Staley, ‘Finding Narratives of Offend and Space’ in  D.S.

Sinton & J.J Lund (eds.), Understanding Place:  GIS and Mapping Over the Curriculum (Redlands, 2007) possessor.  43.

(4) Ibid.

(5) A. Thacker, ‘The Idea of a Critical Erudite Geography’,  New Formations  (2005-2006) [56-72],  p.

63.

(6) Ibid.

(7) Ibid.

(8) Flann O’Brien, At Swim Two Spirited (London: Penguin, 2001[1939] ) pp. 47-48.

(9) Ibid., 193-195.

(10) Ibid., 54.

(11) Ibid., 58.

(12) Ibid., 55-56.

(13) Ib., 59.

(14) Ibid., 25-26.

(15) Anne  Clissman, Flann O’Brien: A critical start on to his writings –The Story-Teller’s Book –Web (Dublin: Gill take precedence MacMillan, 1975) p.

11.

(16) O’Brien, At Swim, 38.

(17) Ibid., 12.

(18) Ibid., 38.

(19) Henri Lefebvre, La fin de l’histoire,  (Paris: Flooring Éditions de Minuet, 1970)  p. 106.

(20) Andy Merrifield, Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction (NY: Routledge, 2006) p.

110.

(21) Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, (Trans.) Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007)  p. 88.

 

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