Before the name “Flann O’Brien” ever appeared on a book, it featured on this newspaper’s letters page, in shadowy circumstances. It was January 1939, and the subject was a play at the Abbey by Frank O’Connor, which had earned poor reviews, provoking O’Connor’s friend Seán O’Faoláin into his public defence.
The letter from “Flann O’Brien” in turn tackled O’Faoláin (or offered to). As theatre criticism goes, it was unusual for, among other things, suggesting they might settle their differences via a boxing match. But if this was a joke, neither O’Connor nor O’Faoláin laughed.
Certain illustrious exiles aside, the two men were then the dominant figures in Irish literature. And they now entered the letters fray in joint defence.
Railing against “literary gangsters”, O’Connor demanded to know how long “the publication of violent personal abuse and challenges to fisticuffs” had been part of the editor’s remit. In more sarcastic vein, he also noted that “Flann O’Brien” had forgotten to include an address where O’Faoláin might find him.
As for the latter, he was no less sure that “Flann O’Brien” was a cover name, and no wiser as to who lurked behind it. But in expressing contempt for his critics, O’Faoláin unwittingly mentioned an establishment to which he should have directed inquiries: “To what levels do we descend in our refined newspapers!” he lamented grandiosely. “Never mind – there is a monument beside the Scotch House to a policeman who died bravely while trying to rescue somebody from the public sewer. Let not my epitaph be written until it is written thereon – as one who descended far lower in a better cause.”
On Dublin’s Burgh Quay, the Scotch House pub was popular with civil servants from the nearby Custom House, who by then included one Brian O’Nolan.
In later years, he would call it his “office”. And the frequency of his visits there would help hasten his retirement from the actual office, in what he termed the “Department of Yokel Government”.
But back in January 1939, the man behind the pseudonym went unmasked. In fact, there was more than O’Nolan involved. His friends Niall Montgomery and Niall Sheridan were fellow conspirators. And encouraged by the success of their first escapade, the unholy trinity struck again a year later.
This time, the subject was a Chekhov play at the Gate. Some of the letters were undoubtedly genuine. But O’Nolan’s biographer Anthony Cronin identified a long list that were suspect, from: “F. O’Brien, D.C. Barry, Lir O’Connor, Whit Cassidy, Paul Desmond, Oscar Love, Luna O’Connor and others”.
Nor were they finished yet. When, in mid-1940, a farmer-poet called Patrick Kavanagh began to write for The Irish Times, "F O'Brien" and company were off again, debating with him and each other for two weeks, until Kavanagh had the last word.
By then, the name of Flann O'Brien had made its formal bow, as author of At Swim-Two-Birds, a book well reviewed (by among others O'Faoláin), if little purchased.
So O’Nolan now had a literary name, or two. But as Cronin notes, the fake correspondence had been very popular with readers. So promoting talent, and simultaneously saving his letters page from further abuse, the editor gave O’Nolan a job – a daily column, under yet another pseudonym, Myles na gCopaleen.
In the 50 years since the death of the man who operated these various franchises, O’Nolan’s fame has continued to grow. Once a strictly local phenomenon, he is now read and enjoyed all over the world. So I was not at all surprised this week to receive an email about him from the University of the South Pacific, in Fiji.
The writer, Dr Maebh Long, I know. She’s one of a new generation of devotees who meet at the now biennial conferences of the International Flann O’Brien Society (next one Salzburg 2017), and who never cease to astonish me by finding interesting new angles on O’Nolan’s work.
As a result, he has been the subject of a steady production line of books. Until now, however, his talent for letter-writing had escaped full attention. That was before Maebh secured permission to collect and publish his life’s correspondence.
She thinks she has most of it already. But clearly, the challenge of tracking down all of this particular writer's letters is greater than most. If any Irish Times readers know of any, pseudonymous or otherwise, that have escaped her, she'd love to hear from you. The incident room is now open at maebh.long@usp.ac.fj or 00679 3232016.