Among the old books for sale at an auction in Birr next week is a signed first American edition of Tarry Flynn by Patrick Kavanagh (1949). That would be a nice thing for a collector to have, in any circumstances. But in this case, the publication itself – and even the signature – is of secondary interest to the rest of the author’s inscription.
Dedicated to Brendan Behan, it reads in full: “For Brendan the poet and painter on the day he decorated my flat – Sunday 12 [February] 1950”. And indirectly, several years later, it was to have unfortunate consequences for both parties.
Even if it had not ended up as evidence in a court case, Kavanagh would soon have reason to regret the dedication. Behan was still primarily a house painter then, who only dabbled in literature. He was on the way to success and fame, however, not something the Monaghan poet ever found easy to forgive.
Then there was the fact that, in most other respects, the two were temperamental opposites. As Antoinette Quinn summed up: “Behan was working class, a rabid republican, a jailbird, and a bisexual: all attributes from which Kavanagh recoiled in horror. With his boisterous behaviour, colourful stories and readiness to burst into impromptu song or recital, Behan also represented the type of buckleppin’ Irishman Kavanagh loathed.”
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Being a proud aboriginal Dubliner, meanwhile, Behan despised the Inniskeen poet as a bogman. Worse, he was also a Fine Gael-supporting Anglophile. And whereas Behan was an enthusiastic Gaeilgeoir, Kavanagh thought all attempts to revive Irish were a waste of money and energy.
So they soon became enemies, loathing each other in about equal proportion but with the difference that Kavanagh was also afraid of Behan, physically and otherwise, considering him “evil”.
All this came to a head in 1954 when the Monaghan man took an ill-advised libel case against The Leader magazine over an anonymous, unflattering profile. He may have seen it as an easy way to make some money (and was encouraged in that view by his solicitors). But a suspicion that Behan had written the profile added to whatever genuine injury he felt.
This meant that Kavanagh’s relationship with Behan became a theme of his cross-examination by John A Costello (a Fine Gael politician, ironically, then between spells as Taoiseach).
Having first drawn out Kavanagh’s protestations of dislike for Behan and all his works with great skill, Costello produced the copy of Tarry Flynn and its affectionate dedication. If this wasn’t a knock-out blow, it badly damaged the plaintiff’s credibility. He lost the case, was plunged into despondency and lung cancer soon afterwards, and would declare 1954 to have been his “annus horribilis”.
The reverberations of the inscription didn’t end there. It was widely assumed that whatever about writing the profile, only Behan could have passed on the damning book to Costello, an act considered treachery in Dublin literary circles. This was to have a violent denouement, not for Kavanagh, but for his friend Anthony Cronin.
Behan, it has since emerged, was innocent of the charge of helping lawyers (it was one of his cousins who gave Costello the book). But Cronin now refused to speak to him and, from his high horse, rebuffed several drunken attempts by Behan to explain.
In his memoir, Dead as Doornails, Cronin would confess: “I was a prig of course, indulging myself in a little bit of drama in which I was the haughty incorruptible and Brendan the indubitable villain ... We should beware of the grand gestures which it costs us nothing to make.”
One night in Davy Byrne’s, Cronin watched a drunken Behan enter, complaining loudly about culchies and other threats to civilisation. Barmen escorted him out but he was on the warpath this time and not to be deflected.
When Cronin left two hours later, Behan was still there, although the first his victim knew about it when being grabbed by the collar and rushed headfirst “at six or seven miles an hour” into a lamp-post. Shocked but not quite concussed, he was able to rally and, having identified the attacker, use Behan’s weight and rage against him. An overcoat Cronin always carried was also crucial.
What followed was less a boxing match and more like a two-legged bullfight, as Behan charged repeatedly while Cronin used the coat like a cape to baffle him and deliver glancing blows in passing.
A crowd cheered accordingly, until Behan’s rage spent itself. Then he dismissed them all as culchies and walked away. In another pub later that night, news of the scrap was greeted by a jubilant Kavanagh who commented: “Didn’t I tell you the bacon would be no match for the slicer?”
It may be apt that the book and its fateful inscription devolved eventually into the possession of a barman – the late Tommy Smith of Grogan’s. It will be Lot 276 in a two-day sale of his and other collections at Purcell Auctioneers in Birr (and online) next week. Is it too much to hope that this fascinating vignette of 20th century literary history might now end up in a museum?
