Dead as Doornails

by Joseph O’Connor

First published 1976

Amazon

4.2(99)

Anthony Cronin remembers the writers, pubs, lodgings and precarious careers that shaped literary Dublin after the Second World War. At the centre are his friendships with Patrick Kavanagh, Brendan Behan and Brian O’Nolan—better known through the names Flann O’Brien and Myles na gCopaleen.

Cronin’s portraits are affectionate without ignoring alcoholism, poverty, rivalry, professional frustration and wasted talent. Journalism, conversation, theatre and pub life matter almost as much as formal publication, creating a picture of a small cultural world whose members continually crossed one another’s paths. The memoir also records Cronin’s own development as a writer and observer, turning personal recollection into a broader account of Irish literary life during a period when celebrated reputations often rested on insecure incomes and difficult private circumstances.