Novelist and folklorist, born in Dublin, Ireland, the brother of Brendan Behan. He adapted old airs and poems into contemporary Irish Republican material, notably in The Patriot Game. Resentfully overshadowed for much of his life by the legend of his brother, he lived largely outside Ireland from 1947 as a journalist and singer. He ultimately settled in Scotland, where he won acceptance as a writer and nationalist. His only novel, The Public Life of Parable Jones, was published just before his death.
Dominic Behan (22 October 1928 - 3 August 1989) was an Irish songwriter, short story writer, novelist and playwright who wrote in both Irish and English. Born into a literary family Dominic Behan was one of the most influential Irish songwriters of the 20th Century.
Biography
Early life
Behan was born in inner-city Dublin into an educated working class family. The house the Behan family lived in belonged to his grandmother Christine English, who owned a number of properties in the area. His father, Stephen Behan trained initially as a Jesuit priest (qualifiying as a teacher) but shortly before taking vows was found in a compromising position with a young woman; Stephen Behan's refusal to take an oath of loyalty to the Irish Free State after the Irish Civil War resulted in his exclusion from the teaching profession for which he'd trained and ultimately a life of comparative hardship.
Stephen Behan became a painter and decorator and married Kathleen Kearney in the early 1920s. Stephen Behan read classic English writers to the children at bedtime and his mother took them on literary tours of the city. Behan's uncle, Peadar Kearney, wrote the Irish National Anthem ("A Soldier's Song"). In 1952, Behan was arrested in Dublin for leading a civil disobedience campaign in protest against the ruling government's failure to tackle critical economic issues including unemployment.
Behan, the writer
On release from gaol Dominic Behan married Josephine Quinn, the daughter of a leading Scottish left-wing journalist. A biography of his brother, Brendan Behan, appeared in 1965, My Brother Brendan. His songs became popular among the Irish living in England, especially The Patriot Game, McAlpine's Fusilers, Avondale, The Merry Ploughboy, Famine Song and Liverpool Lou.
Behan's Death
Dominic died at home in Glasgow, aged 60, on 3 August 1989 of pancreatic cancer, shortly after the publication of his critically acclaimed novel "The Public world of Parable Jones".
Behan had more than 450 songs published during his lifetime, which does not include works which were not published.
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