A bronze sculpture was unveiled the other day (December 8 2003) in Dublin. It commemorates Brendan Behan, the writer, playwright, and poet, born in Dublin, died in Dublin, forever remembered in Dublin.

Behan's plays The Hostage, The Quare Fellow, and The Big House, were a trio of works that took world theatre by storm in the middle of the last century. His prose and poetry still command attention wherever writing is valued. His rambunctious lifestyle is recounted in memoirs, books, and lately by those streetwalkers who shepherd tourists bent on cultural enlightenment from pub to pub in Dublin, the haunts in their time of Patrick Kavanagh, Brian Nolan (Myles na gCopaleen) and other literary luminaries-bang goes the first alliteration-including Brendan Behan, always at the centre of some controversy or other.

True to form, the unveiling of the sculpture, the work of John Coll, created another controversy, one in which Behan himself would have been delighted.

Like a previous work by Coll, of Patrick Kavanagh seated on a park bench on the banks of the Grand Canal, Coll chose to depict Behan sitting on another bench beside the Grand Canal. There is no controversy about the sculptures, both fine bronzes, though some may cavil about the paucity of imagination in placing both subjects on park benches.

The occasion was supposed to be celebratory. The unveiling was performed by the Taoiseach, Mr. B. Ahern, generally known as Bertie, and that's where the row began.

Taking umbrage (another British victory!) with Mr. Ahern's presence at the event, Paudge Behan, speaking on behalf of the Behan family, let fly. Bertie, said Paudge, "could not be further removed" from the spirit of the illustrious Brendan. The family were insulted that he was the one chosen to praise Brendan.

There was a certain coughing and shuffling of feet.

The crowd dispersed.

Some claimed the bronze on the bench was smiling.

The affair jogged memories of seeing Behan holding forth in the Pearl Bar, the gathering place of all who worked on The Irish Times newspaper which published some of his early pieces.

That Dublin in those days had a heart was shown by various bar men in various pubs who were solicitous about their famed customer. Some of them handled him as if he were a loved family member, and were concerned whenever inebriation threated his welfare.

Another memory also returned.

Whenever Behan was under pressure to write, to finish the manuscript of play or book, he sought refuge from the world around him. One such self isolation has a peculiar Canadian twist to it.

The persons involved are three in number, Brendan, Sheila O'Higgins, and her sister Fionula, the two sisters in later years becoming residents of Canada.

Fionula shared ownership of a cottage located in the Dublin Mountains and on one occasion allowed Behan to seek refuge there in order to write in peace. As Behan himself has written in Brendan Behan's Island, a book plentifully illustrated with line drawings by the artist Paul Hogarth:

I wrote the play (The Hostage) very quickly -- in about twelve days or so. I wrote it in Irish and it was first put on in Irish in Dublin.

Behan wrote and wrote and finished his work in peace and seclusion. That wasn't all he finished. When Fionula returned to the cottage after the great writer left, she found dead men all over the place. In drinkers' parlance, "dead men" were empty bottles. From their labels it was clear the contents hadn't been holy water.

That's the story behind one of his greatest works, and it comes straight from Sheila's lips.

Fionula and Brendan are resting in peace. Happily Sheila is still with us, living in Ottawa, where her younger son Dara resides. Her elder son Colm lives in Markham, Ontario.

What Brendan himself would have thought of Bertie can safely be left to the imagination.

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