The genius of Myles na Gopaleen must not be subjugated by the imperialism of Flann O’Brien

Faith, has it really been two score years and ten? It has you know. Well, would you credit that? I know. Fifty years! Seems appropriate, though. What? That he’d leave this day. For sure. I mean, of all the days to pick! This one would be among the best. Possibly the very best. You’re not wrong there. I might even be right. Woah, hold your horses! Even the little ones? Especially them. Brutish little creatures. Brutes, yes.

Be that as it may – and mark my words, it may (even in April) – today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Flann O’Brien, the second-greatest* Irish writer of the twentieth century. There should, by rights, be scarcely a dry eye in The Palace bar today. This includes the glass ones.

Actually, now that I think of it, Flann O’Brien was the second-greatest writer in his own head. I mean the novels – particularly At Swim Two Birds, The Third Policeman, The Poor Mouth are fine – but the real genius grew in The Cruiskeen Lawn, the daily column Myles na Gopaleen contributed to The Irish Times for more than a quarter of a century.