What was the usual nom de plume of Irish novelist and journalist Brian O'Nolan, who also wrote as
Myles na Gopaleen? A Edgar O'Brien B Flann O'Brien C Michael O'Brien D Connor O'Brien 14.
Flann O'Brien, alias
Myles na Gopaleen, wrote a column called 'The Plain People of Ireland' back in the day, including a gag where one plain person of Ireland was singing the praises of Jamstutter, an athlete of legendary prowess.
He wrote various newspaper articles from 1940 to 1966 which were signed Myles na gCopaleen or
Myles na Gopaleen, the latter a phonetic rendering of the first.
Another character sketch chapter "Brian of the Many Masks" illustrates the life and work of Brian O'Nolan, also known as
Myles na Gopaleen or Flann O'Brien, author of At-Swim-Two-Birds.
Drink and Time in Dublin by Flann O'Brien (
Myles na Gopaleen)
So imagine when my iced water and blood pressure checks were accompanied by a piece published first in the 1940s by one of the greats of Irish writing, Brian O' Nolan, known to avid readers of comic novels like me as Flann O'Brien and to readers of the Irish Times as
Myles na Gopaleen. The newspaper is re-running some of his Cruiskeen Lawn columns to mark the 100th anniversary of his bir th.
I cannot recommend it." See
Myles na Gopaleen, "Finnegan," The Hair of the Dogma: A Further Selection from "Cruiskeen Lawn," ed.
He wrote novels under the pen name Flann O'Brien, and for twenty-six years contributed his column "Cruiskeen Lawn" to the Irish Times as well as his Gaelic comedic masterpiece An beal bocht under the pseudonym
Myles na Gopaleen. This collection of essays, edited by O'Brien scholar Baines, examines O'Brien's body of work and how it relates to twentieth-century Irish culture and literature.
Whether by happenstance or design, while the Abbey was presenting Boucicault's Myles-na-Coppaleen upstairs, the Peacock Theatre downstairs--the Abbey's experimental wing--was mounting an adaptation of At Swim-Two-Birds, by Flann O'Brien, better known by the nom de plume
Myles Na Gopaleen (a variation of Boucicault's spelling), whose Irish Times column, "Cruiskeen Lawn" was the "Doonesbury" of its time.
O'Brien, who worked for the Irish Civil Service, was known during his lifetime as a brilliant columnist (under the pen name
Myles na Gopaleen) for thirty years on the Irish Times.
More recently, Declan Kiberd accused the Stage-Irishman side of
Myles na Gopaleen (with the later spelling used by O'Brien, after Boucicault) of entrapping Flann O'Brien in the limitations of the colonial subject towards his metropolitan center: when Myles "succumbed to the temptation to placate his newspaper audience," Flann O'Brien took on the role of licensed jester, which led him to "exploit, rather than express, his material" (512), in the hope of reaching London audiences.
The event of Bloomsday was inspired by Ryan who dug up two old broughams for the ride to all the places mentioned in Ulysses, with a crew of joyful Joyceans: Patrick Kavanagh, Anthony Cronin, Con Leventhal, and Flann O'Brien--better known as
Myles na Gopaleen of the Irish Times.