The Third Policeman

Happy Birthday Flann O’Brien…

Brian O'Neill on October 5, 2021, 12:35 pm

| Readers 1446

Had he survived, Strabanes own Brian O’Nolan would have been 110 today. Unfortunately, alcohol meant he barely made it to half that age, dying at 54. A surreal comic genius, his books are still popular today – most notably The Third Policeman. The Third Policeman was written between 1939 and 1940, but after it initially failed to find a publisher, the author withdrew the manuscript from circulation and claimed he had lost it. The book remained unpublished at the time …

…if University education were universally available and availed of, the country would collapse in one generation

John Ó Néill on March 31, 2011, 11:17 am

| Readers 137

The words of Brian O’Nolan, variously Brian Ó Nualláin, Myles na gCopaleen, Myles na Gopaleen and, of course, Flann O’Brien. That O’Nolan was referencing his own dissolute student days at UCD only mildly distracts from the prophetic undertone of his words: I paid no attention whatsoever to books or study and regarded lectures as a joke which, in fact, they were if you discern anything funny in mawkish, obtuse mumblings on subjects any intelligent person could master single-handed in a …