Few would associate Tullamore with Myles na gCopaleen. But the O'Nolan family spent several years living in the Co Offaly town in the 1920s because their father was a Customs and Excise officer.
His job meant he and his family were often on the move. Among other places they lived were Strabane, Glasgow and Inchicore in Dublin. Details of the writer's peripatetic childhood can be found in The Early Years of Brian O'Nolan/Flann O'Brien/Myles na gCopaleen, written by Brian's brother Ciaran O Nuallain, who died in 1983.
This first English language edition of the book, which was published yesterday, is edited by another brother, Niall O'Nolan, and published by Lilliput Press.
Translated from the original Irish Oige an Dearthar by their sister Roisin Ni Nuallain and published first in 1973, the book covers the family's early years. The O'Nolans lived in Coppencur on Daingean Road, where they moved in November 1920 during the War of Independence.
Ciaran recalls that the family lived in a house called the Copper Beeches that was rented from the Odlum family. When they arrived there, one of the first things they did was buy a car, an Overland. This their father would use to get to places such as Kilbeggan, Locke's Distillery and Edenderry.
"One of his duties was to visit farmers all over the county who were growing tobacco."
Often he took the children. "I remember visiting Birr. Another time it was the nursery in Geashil, where seeds and plants were purchased. Brian mentions Geashil a couple of times in his writings. It must have been this trip which left the name in his memory," he writes.
Ciaran also recalls the condition of the roads, all dirt surfaces and thronged with bicycles as people made their way to Mass on Sunday mornings.
Other memories were of playing croquet with his father at the house and visiting the library run by the nuns in Tullamore after Mass on Sundays.
The nuns' collection included the novels of Sabatini and Stacpoole, George Birmingham's Spanish Gold - and Conan Doyle.
The older O'Nolan brothers, Gearoid, Brian and himself would walk to see silent films in Tullamore, and while he could not remember where the cinema was, it was an ordinary hall adapted for the purpose.
Another less pleasant memory was of being in a playhouse made of sacks by the garden wall. Once he was playing inside the house, hidden from view, when English soldiers walked into the garden.
"They were looking for men to cut and clear a big tree which was blocking the road in front of their lorries. One of the soldiers, rifle at the ready, came down the garden to see if there was anyone about. I watched him come and go but he did not see me," Ciaran recalls.