Brendan Behan
Brendan Behan
BRENDAN BEHAN d1964. Irish poet, short story writer, novelist playwright and Irish Republican activist who wrote in both English and Irish. He was named by Irish Central as one of the greatest Irish writers of all time. He reached the peak of his fame in the early 1960s and spent increasing amounts of time in New York City famously declaring ; "To America my new found land. The man that hates you hates the human race". By this point, he began spending time with people including ; Harpo Marx and Arthur Miller and was followed by a young Bob Dylan. However this new-found fame did nothing to aid his health or his work with his alcoholism and diabetes medical conditions continuing to deteriorate. His New York and Confessions of an Irish Rebel received little praise. He briefly attempted to combat this by a dry stretch while staying at Chelsea Hotel in New York and in 1961 was admitted to Sunnyside Private Hospital (an institution for the treatment of alcoholism) in Toronto, but he once again turned back to alcohol and relapsed back into active alcoholism. He died in Dublin aged just 41 on March 20th 1964