BIOGRAPHY

Flann O'brien is the pseudonym of Brien O'Nuallain who was born on 
October 1911 at 15 Bowling Green, Strabane, Co. Tyrone. He was the
 third child in a family of twelve. His mother Agnes and his father 
Michael Victor Nolan lived there only temporarily as Michael was a 
custom excise officer, a job which required him to travel frequently.
For Michael Nolan, Irish was the language spoken by the family 
although they were literate in English. At the age of twelve, Bryan 
started school and went to Synge St before moving on to Blackrock 
College where he met John Charles McQuaid -future Archbishop of 
Dublin -who was then Dean of Studies. McQuaid took an interest in
 Brian's writings and published some of his earliest work in the College 
annual. After a brilliant career at University College, Dublin, O'Nolan 
did linsguistic research in Germany and then joined the Irish civil service.
He seems to have been greatly influenced by James Joyce, a fellow 
countryman, as can be traced in his first novel called At Swim-Two-Birds. 
His other books and plays include An Beal Bocht and The Third Policeman 
(1940), Faustus Kelly (1943), The Hard Life (1960), and The Dalkey
 Archive, which was produced on the Dublin stage in 1965. At the end of the
 1930s O'Nolan began in the Irish Times. Under the name of Myles 
na gCopaleen he became a well-known satirical columnist and he
 wrote for the Times from 1940 until his death on April Fool's Day 1966.