Is it about a bicycle? The story of Brian O'Nolan

you if you're going to be dad completely there is no one's soluble impediment to that proposal but it is easier to show you and to tell you verbally as a diverter vesicle be sure sir not about a motorcycle no one with overhead valves and a dynamo for late or with racing handlebars no well in that circumstance all eventualities there can be no question of a motor bicycle so here lies the body of brianna Nolan otherwise known as flannel Brian miles and a gobbler and Christine lon George knew all and many other names besides so who was this man graded he needs for millenniums Brendan Behan once said that you had to look at Brianna Nolan twice to make sure that he was there at all no one knew the flannel Brian looked like to begin our story we have to go north to eternal Strabane and Country to Rome in the year 1911 Strabane was a busy bustling market town with a population of around 10,000 people there were monthly fairs there was a busy canal there was a real head connecting to Derry Belfast Dublin and skill in hand on eagle on the 5th of October 1911 Brian uh Nolan 3rd son born to Michael V and Ike nice knee Gormley was born at number 15 Bowling Green Strabane it was probably one of the oldest roads in the world I find it hard to think of a time when there was no road there because the trees the tall hills and the fine views of Berglund had been arranged by wise hands for the pleasing picture they made would looked at from the road without a road to have them looked at from they would have a somewhat aimless if not a futile as me Brian's father Michael Victor Oh Nolan had grown up in Belfast had come to Strabane in 1897 when he was posted to the tone as a Customs and Excise officer he had been born in 1875 in the village of kill Eclair I'd say DOMA at this point average to talk to Joe Martin and Brendan Harkin from kellyco her and to discuss the connections with Michael Nolan on the GAA area of calico so so Brendan a Jew um we're now here in Kelly car we've traced the line from Dublin and we're looking to trace the history of the Oh Nolan family before they ended up in Strabane so what's the story here well fish Anna her Bri and Shannon our minds targets they're normally Chuck subscribed model model school picnic Tigers don't knock over this you know one church I miss prepare and squirted and hooked the tiered the shop D so locally and then post post here Kylie nos and Piroska shop Colleen devanam TN Mel she and Melanie the Malon and argon e he has a channel t valladon Piroska san espera de casa learner a I will show you the keyboard more Hannah cheered a deuce Gucci Winnie Jarek certain Jared wynia aren t Velden Alma Alison seein Hannah kid than Shaw gamma lot more of a system Shaw such aa and a coalition in the regulation table job a row boo me horrible new line how her maids notably as a Hui three meter logger Sierra her against gun shop girl she just the inoculation shop of party valeton 7 of these hidden shark I scrolled by probably in essence in danger she got that first year up and kid they adjust a vehicle on a new line and shot it's quite a kill ago so maybe we should go over to look at the hosts and the field where the family were born and grew up I wa well Neal Emma and the châtelet Shack Balian teeth after immersion here well that was a long walk up there night to come to the house of Lake ovo Nolan what he was born jewel you said it was a chat bug well it's definitely a very small house well chat burger - yeah I was created to me girl she's in the whole Ian Shaw enough gear dude be carefully and be ably it is good and he enjoyed the war Chuck risen to be on Porter option that supporter courtesy be a respite and thoroughly shot virus and Shaw are Abu our minds Nagappa Lena if it must mean a lovely place to live out in the country looking out over the fields or sannyasa nature shot it's a coronation yeah we actually we're his legiere of God using Kelly Claire the right place right time when we talk to you about Michael Nolan his influence on Irish culture and in developing of the Gaelic Athletic Association in the Strabane district this entire fog and Chara her the egg makalah Newland air hole is a scale and try one a con dear hero one of us a Googler its rear upper position fee remember be some negative and a hundred gala you know Joel from dosa Sangha August Maliki I guess I know kosher gone on Facebook Stefan so tell me them he was involved in developing the fish he was involved in the eros language development he wasn't involved in setting up the local club and Strabane he was involved in the Turin and he was involved with Ulster all of those things hurshe common Luke Lasky airborne errant r101 I was good Nora DC and ahead Oberon the community has gathered here on la siroque turn here la serda and Cory Allah Agha Sandara worked on the whole yoga feed fishy fishy more fish occur on war and then a small Bajor as a star good Allah star ho blueglass gala Googler instanton kid and and instead ambition or when you get their gear you get Diego's at three Cugini Gideon said I hop the e in 1906 Michael or Nolan made Agnes Gormley the service was held at merlok church outside Lifford the service quite unusual was conducted mostly an irish by Michaels brothers garage and Peter Brian was born on the 5th of October 1911 he was the third son of Michael and Agnes after garage and Kieran it was rather unique in the family because they only spoke Irish in the Family Circle they were not encouraged to mix with all their children and did not attend school they moved briefly to Italian a grania they moved to Bowling Green in 1911 we're concentrating on a very famous person Breanna NOLA we became miles Nagappa Lynne flannel Brian mr. Newell Brian Brian or Nolan and Fidelma Hassan the one thing you have in common is we're both born in the same house yes unfortunately but I didn't write this PMC you weren't a writer of the series no no I'm afraid not even the water the first front room what immediately on your right hand and say the stairs were on the right-hand side during the hall as you dr. stairs it opened Oh them to other the first little place you went to was this bathroom that then there were another four steps up took you to the drawing room which in those days was the drawing room and then a bedroom beside that back to school the drawing room would be both windows yes and there was no lighting box forever there was a gas downstairs of nothing beyond it is the second floor there was nothing else carried the candles of society perhaps candles yes and in those days looking out from the the windows that you looked onto a big open space with absolutely nothing in it nobody can ever remember a blade of grass who entered even what was called the bowling-green was a wonderful place certainly I found a wonderful a Walkman in 1912 Michael was temporarily transferred to Glasgow and from Glasgow they moved back to Inchicore in Dublin and 1916 and by 1917 they were back in Strabane in Bali Coleman Brianna Nolan had cherished memories of his childhood and subsequent holidays in Strabane which he described as the happy-go-lucky Tyne at the confluence of two tumbling rivers his brother Kieran wrote that the days he and Brian and brother garage spent by the morn were the happiest days of their lives particularly the are spent in the long grass of the riverbank while the Sun seemed to stand still in the cloudless summer sky and they could hear the distant clang of mowing machines and the faint hum of the turbines in the London mill in Kieran's Brook Eiger and Jarrah her he described during the summer who spent a lot of time at the Riverside waiting about in the water with our boots tied together by the laces and slung around our necks it was a favorite pastime I do not remember what we were doing we certainly were not fishing that activity came into its own only when the river was in the flood in any event we became very knowledgeable with the stretch of the river near the time we could pinpoint every hole an under water Rock and the likely location of a rest in troit or a coiling on other days we would go up the riverbank as far as chemists where the water is dark and even in summer seven fields up the bank of the river there was a chance you would see a seal and there would be hundreds of swallows skimming and diving when the midgets appeared in the sunlight these were stirring times in the political life of the country war and unrest were in the air nevertheless if I had to choose the quietest happiest days I can remember in my whole life I would pick the years 1917 to 1920 I remember especially long summer days when we would be lying on the high grassy banks at the Riverside days when you could imagine that the Sun was standing in the sky was time suspended no movement except for the river and no sign except for the home of insects and the faraway throb of the shirt factory giving out the pulse of summer the river was only one aspect of our lives in Strabane apart from our life at home the rapport we had with my mother's family influenced us enormously in 1923 when Brian was 12 years of age his father Michael was promoted and transferred to Dublin beloved at number 25 Herbert Street close to the Grand Canal between moines street and Baggot Street bridge you know as I'm standing here throwing stones and to the river mourn it reminds me of whenever we were living in 25 Herbert place garage and Brian and I akhirin our bedroom was on the fourth floor we were always experimenting so one day Brian dropped pepper out of the fourth floor and we watched it floating down and was a lovely experiment so the next time we tried it and the paper was heavier and litter we tried a pebble and we watched it as it went and hit the gravel the next day we tried it with a bigger stool until one night we decided but of devilment we got larger stones and we waited until a single passerby was coming along the dark street and just as he passed our house we opened the window through the store night and it fell on the gravel and the passerby turned an astonishment thinking that there was a ghostly figure B hane looked around to see nothing we thought this was great fun so he tried it a few times until one night we tried it once too often with a large stone who threw it to the ground but it hit the metal railings and this passerby he didn't think it was a ghostly presence he went to the house next door and complained that stones have been thrown from high open abode now the next night when we decided to try it again we stopped when we saw little glistening lights among the trees only to discover that it was the shame the policeman's uniform the neighbors were watching never did it again the boys were at last sent to school from Black Rock he attended the University College Dublin from where he graduated with a degree in Celtic languages in literature and language but he took up a post in the civil service to help his mother financially with the upbringing of his eight siblings he rose to the position of private secretary advising several government ministers in 1930 years he wrote at swim-two-birds which was a literary fantasy it was a novel about a man who was writing a book about a man who was writing a book about a man who was writing a novel Kevin we've been recently latent aims of our brain or Nolan and the led to meet yourself and find out what you remember about your uncle Brian well Michael Bay collections of of meeting him a long time ago he died when I was 8 but I do remember him coming to our house in Limerick when I was seven and he I do distinctly remember him strolling up the driveway with his case with his writings and his traditional coat and hat and he came in and I think he had a couple of glasses of whiskey with my mother I was asked about the time no no I think I think he had got a taxi or something that the train from Donna and they had a great chat I think they used to get on very well and then later my father arrived and they had a conference but that was about 1965 so it was us to you before he died so he died on the first of April 19 success correct so what would your family of made of Brian yeah yeah our grandfather Victor suddenly died and and in a precarious situation so he took up the the leadership really and it was a tough I would says wait offering me because he always wanted to be a professional writer but I don't think he could have afforded to have loved on his right so we joined the civil service and became very successful absolutely but I think that was it at that time he wouldn't have survived on writing alone so he needed both intimacy how would you sum up Brian my as an uncle of yours I think he was a foreman I remember very shy man but I do remember my my my aunt telling me when my parents are getting married he called over to the house and my grandmother on my mother's side thought it was a very charming man and she really liked it but he was very shy one little point always impressed me Kevin and that is this aspect of Brian or Noland drinking what would you say about that well Michael over the years has been a huge background to pubs with Irish writers which has been exaggerated to to to suit the position and of course he was a serious drinker and what it also like to make the point that he was doing three columns a week with yours times he never once missed a deadline he was also writing and of course he was working as well so he couldn't be in a pub to 14 hours a day and get this done the the draw of the Irish Times was a huge mental pull on him because it had to be there it had to be funny and had to be topical and it had to be on time Terry's family has owned this pub since 1921 and Terry Brian or Nolan would have been a customer room here yes and we can be around this cops attention Tebow imagem as you mentioned and was actually and purchased by my grandmother and he didn't work for terribly long number of years but since my father became a teenager he got involved in this and he worked in this and continuously on from the time he died which was in 1980 and was yeeowww I never knew Bry no known and what I used here as I was growing up as a young boy and the very many stories that he related and about Brian and I know my father had agreed with our forum and used to refer to him as a very life of the room where I know Nolan would look in the window and my father would either say yes I mean or perhaps yes no you're not Dejan yeah cuz I'm Brian with them it wouldn't hurt be happy with fuses and he was sort of a statement would say to my father occasion happiness pardon profit or focus and this over the year so he got his thought he got his own back on my father but he was much like to very very light very light of a person could be difficult on times but very passive customer and sort of have some carrot over the years because he became so well-known and such a character feel my chin mcruiz concet smiling enigmatically we call it that the sergeant explained because you don't grow old here when you leave here you will be the same age as you we're coming in on the same stature and latitude there is a knit day clock here with a patent balanced action but it never goes how can you be sure you don't grow old here feel my chin my Chris can sell again it is simple the sergeant said the beard does not grow and if you are fed you do not get hungry and if you are hungry you don't get hungrier your pipe will smoke all day and will still be full and a glass of whiskey will still be there no matter how much of it you drink and it does not matter in any case because it will not make you drunker than your own sobriety indeed I muttered I have been here for a long time this today morning mcruiz consent and my jaw is still as smooth as a woman's back and the convenience of it takes my breath away it is a great thing to don't face the old razor in 1941 he wrote his only lengthy piece in Irish the piece was called unbell box in which he poked fun at Irish language enthusiasts and the Irish culture Brian uh Nolan once claimed that his vocation was the chastisement of the poly and hypocrisy of modern-day air he often scoffed with the writers the theses researchers specially Americans who beat a path to Dublin to research James Joyce ironically scholars research raiders especially Americans now beat a path to Dublin to research we'll get to the life and times of the man of Strabane man known as Brian or NOLA alias flannel Brian alias miles in the Gatlin alias unchristian life he died in Dublin on the 1st of April 1966 he would have find this ironic cuz that was Balkans day needle or a water vein honking ha ha you

Channel: alleytheatrestrabane

Views: 35,644

Rating: 4.8989172 out of 5

Keywords: flann, o'brien, brian, two, birds+, irish, times+pint, of, plain+blackrock+irish, writers+boston, college+, strabane, killyclogher, Myles, na, gCopaleen, Cruiskeen, Lawn, myles, o'nolan+myles, third policeman, tyrone, michael o'nolan

Id: 1p8h1p3P334

Length: 25min 52sec (1552 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 29 2011