Restating a parochial vision: A reconsideration of Patrick Kavanagh, Flann O'Brien, and Brendan Behan (Ireland)

The Irish Literary Revival and the Irish Literary Renaissance are familiar models in the criticism addressing early- to mid-twentieth century Irish literature. Post-Rebellion writers who do not fit neatly into these models are often overlooked by critics or considered predominantly in light of their failure either to live up to one particular model or adequately resist it. These nonaligned writers are also rarely seen as having any relation to one another, much less forming their own tradition. This project positions a certain kind of parochialism as an alternative model for considering a number of these post-Rebellion writers and thus offers a model for exhuming other writers of this generation from critical obscurity and misrepresentation. More importantly, this model also illuminates these writers' innovative yet often overlooked engagement with cultural forces, such as tradition, myth, history, and landscape. It also links critically three writers who are often only linked anecdotally: Patrick Kavanagh, Flann O'Brien, and Brendan Behan. Early chapters focus on the development of Kavanagh's parochial vision, beginning with an examination of parochialism in the context of the revival, and then an exploration of Kavanagh's own different and emerging sense of parochialism in two early works, "Shancoduff" (1937), and "Inniskeen Road: July Evening" (1936). Kavanagh's best-known works, The Green Fool (1938), The Great Hunger (1942), and Tarry Flynn (1948) are examined in light of their contribution to the achievement of Kavanagh's ultimate parochial vision. In its consideration of Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds (1939) and An Beal Bocht (1941)/The Poor Mouth (1973), the project shows how O'Brien re-creates and re-maps familiar Irish landscapes in order to establish spaces in which factors influencing the formation of national identity are negotiated. Additionally, the project explores how O'Brien's re-mapping of two less familiar landscapes in The Third Policeman (1941/1967) and The Dalkey Archive (1964) reveals the synthesis of metaphysical and scientific ideas into parochial understanding. The project concludes with an examination of Behan's articulation of an "urban" parochial vision in which certain neglected Dublin populations negotiate a changing Ireland within claustrophobic tenements and prison cells.