Journalism
Journalism
Beginning with Comhthrom Féinne,
Flann O'Brien used numerous pseudonyms to attack public figures or sentiment
with the printed word. Graduating to the Irish Times in the
late 1930s, O'Brien, better known now as Myles na Gopaleen, began "Cruiskeen
Lawn." The title roughly means "full little jug" in Gaelic, a reference
to a full pot of whiskey or poteen, the Irish bootleg malt. This
article had a number of mainstays throughout the years that readers came
to expect. Amongst them are episodes of Keats and Chapman, The Plain
People of Ireland, the Brother, WAAMA, Catechism of Cliché, the
Myles Research Bureau, various monologues and dialogues between himself
and another party, and others.
Myles never missed the opportunity
for a bad pun, delighting in going to the greatest extent for even the
smallest semblance of one. In one early article he wrote of a farmer
who loses four dogs to a rabid, red-eyed hare that in turn bit him during
his escape. Searching for the only survivor of the four dogs, the
farmer meets another man. He describes the nature of his efforts
as, "looking for a dog of the hare that bit me..." playing off the common
Irish phrase that often refers to drinking on a hangover, "a hair of the
dog that bit you."(Cruiskeen Lawn) The Keats
and Chapman anecdotes are nearly entirely comprised of dialogues that haphazardly
direct the reader to some abstruse pun, usually provoking a slow head shake
as if one gets the bad joke. For instance:
Keats was once presented with an Irish terrier,
which he humourously named Byrne. One day the beast strayed from
the house and failed to return at night. Everybody was distressed,
save Keats himself. He reached reflectively for his violin, a fairly
passable timber of the Stradivarius feciture, and was soon at work with
chin and jaw.
Chapman, looking in for an after-supper pipe,
was astonished at the poet's composure, and did not hesitate to say so.
Keats smiled (in a way that was rather lovely).
"And why should I not fiddle," he asked, "while
Byrne roams?" (Cruiskeen Lawn)
One would almost expect a rim-shot
after the finale.
As
David Powell aptly notes:
Myles might move in the space of a few lines from a parody of clichés
to a learned discussion of etymology or, or he might, as he often did in
the middle and later periods of the column, continue a subject two or more
days, marking an entry with a Roman numeral to identify the particular
segment touching on the subject. (The
English Writings of Flann O'Brien)
The Plain People of Ireland, as Myles writes them, are a simple, honest (if not thick) people that are often below appreciation of Myles' pun work and anecdote slinging. Below is a column with a dialogue with the Brother, an absent Irish character that manifests urban myth, followed by a conclusive dialogue with the Plain People of Ireland:
The brother takes a poor view of the war.
He does?
He says you'll see Spain in before Easter.
How does he know that?
He does be across in London buying paper bags and twine. He says
we have no idea. He gives the war another ten years, twelve with
Spain in. Himself and Mr. Carse had a long talk in a private hotel
where the brother stays.
Who is Mr. Carse?
An English pal.
Is Mr. Carse in the confidence of the British Government?
The brother says he is the first Englishman he ever met that has his
head on the right way. A great friend of Ireland, too, married to
a Cork girl, so the brother says. Mr. Carse takes a very poor view
of hostilities beyond in America.
I am sorry to hear it.
Says you'll see a conflagration in South America before Easter.
The Latin blood will have to come out somewhere, so Mr. Carse told the
brother. A world-wide conflagration, the end of which no man can
foresee. Them were his words.
It is a bleak look-out.
And then Communism after the war, the dogs in the streets driving around
in motor-cars, not a fluke you can call your own and some gobdaw above
in Dublin Castle telling YOU AND ME what to do and singin' the Red Flag.
Big workin' class flats everywhere you go, and every man of us walkin'
round in overalls. Dublingrad, eh?
It is hardly a cheering prospect.
The brother's putting all his money into blankets and fur coats and
valuable articles of cutlery. Real property, he says, is your only
man. No fear of him being caught out, or Mr. Carse either.
Two cute boyos.
Thank you very much for the tip.
Conclusion
The Plain People of Ireland: Have you nothing to say?
Myself: Amn't I saying plenty?
The Plain People of Ireland: But this is Christmas Eve.
Myself: O! I wish to take the opportunity of wishing you all
a very happy Christmas and a preposterous New Year.
The Plain People of Ireland(delighted): Thank you very much.
A happy and merry Christmas to yourself and to all of the Irish Times
at Number Thirty-one.
Myself: Thank you. You will send me a card?
The Plain People of Ireland: Of course.
Myself: With snow, robins, holly, black cats, mistletoe, and
the old coach-and-four?
The Plain People of Ireland: Of course.
Myself: Thank you, indeed, brothers, and farewell. (Cruiskeen
Lawn)
Rather than dwindling down to a pun, this column slips in the word "preposterous," and keeps on at regular pace, as the dense Plain People of Ireland take it as a common greeting. O'Brien challenge the orthodoxy to internalize the gist of a phrase and lose an intimate relationship with the meaning of words. Occasionally he gives small, often humorous lectures on the nature of words and differences between languages. Nearing the end of a column, as the punch line approaches he mentions the pun's inability to make sense in Gaelic (it is written in English), but says it could possibly work in French. He often bends the rules of grammar for his own amusement as an antidote to an otherwise depressing world, fraught with illogical falseness and ineptitude.
Apart from the conspicuous practice of writing a portion of his article in Gaelic, Myles uses all of his episodic tools to disrupt the progression of language, in order to highlight something about it that is delightful. Silliness is often the word for it. He hated the abuse and overuse of simplistic phrases that lacked any real substance. For these he created the Catechism of Cliché:
What would do him but march me into the nearest
public house and buy me a glass of whiskey?
NOTHING.
Under what did I think I might as well have it?
THE CIRCUMSTANCES.
Nevertheless, assuming that there were relationships
between us, in what state must inevitably such relations have been?
STRAINED.
And owing to what being beyond my control did
I accept the drink?
CIRCUMSTANCES.
Under what archaic conditions of military sale
did this same party dispose of my mother's property years before?
LOCK, STOCK, AND BARREL.
But in what plural and surrounding abstractions
did I pretend to have forgotten that episode?
THE CIRCUMSTANCES.
What bound literary work did my pretended forgetfulness
suit?
MY BOOK.
What pathetic articles belonging to my mother's
furniture did he formerly put out on the side-walk?
THE STICKS.
And under what tragic things did this eviction
take place?
CIRCUMSTANCES.
What did this eviction take under tragic circumstances?
IT TOOK PLACE.
Whose fool was I when I decided to accept hospitality
from this person?
NOBODY'S.
What transparent recreation could I see through?
HIS GAME.
From what person to what other person did he
think he could send me?
TOM, DICK, AND HARRY.
Wheredid he think he could send the fool?
FARTHER.
But what act had I performed in relation to him
with long lengths of narrow fabric?
I HAD HIM TAPED.
What belonging to him did I have?
HIS MEASURE.
Where precisely did I have him?
PRECISELY WHERE I WANTED HIM.
What abundant, essential, firm and durable thing
did I take from under his feet?
THE GROUND.
What useful articles of furniture did I invert?
THE TABLES...
Another column begins:
AT THE MARKET
Most people have no idea what goes on in the Dublin fish market. I
called there at 5 o'clock the other morning hoping to pick up a few lemon-grilled
trout for the equivalent of a song. Imagine my amazement to find
Irish salmon on offer at 3/10 to 4/-, English 3/6, Scotch lobsters 2/4....(Cruiskeen
Lawn)
The column concludes in this manner after a Joycean list of fish varieties and their prices. Myles wrote for everyone. It is easy to understand his Dublin gab, his intellectual yet hilarious debates on domestic and international issues attract reactionaries and scholars, and his Gaelic articles are specifically for the Irish speaking numbers, so that they might have a chance in the fun as well. Most of his journalism now appears in bound editions.