AT A time when something under Switzerland appears to have done the unthinkable by breaking the speed of light, its a matter of regret that Flann OBriens great scientist, De Selby, is no longer working. Perhaps only he, or Sergeant Pluck, could explain what happened at Cern. And while hes at it, the sergeant might also apprehend the elusive Higgs Boson particle, which despite the greatest manhunt in history, was still at large last night.
Failing enlightenment from De Selby or Pluck, yet another of Brian O’Nolans brilliant creations, this newspaper’s long-time columnist Myles na gCopaleen, would surely have offered guidance. It was one of his many affectations not merely to understand the theory of relativity, now under threat, but also to have collaborated with Einstein himself.
Alas, as we celebrate the centenary of O’Nolan’s birth, he and his fertile imagination have been gone from us for almost half that 100 years. But his best jokes are still funny and his popularity continues to grow, to an extent that would surprise the critics who, even before his premature death aged 54, wrote him off as a failure.
It is true that O’Nolans life was destroyed by alcoholism. It may also be true, as at least one commentator argued, that journalism was as fatal to his talent as drink. Yet both his books and columns remain widely read, while writers who seemed more important in his lifetime are forgotten.
Full potential or not, his achievements were impressive. He wrote perhaps three classic novels and supplied readers of the column with daily laughs throughout 2½ of modern Irelands grimmest decades. Besides which, it should be said that he lived according to his own principles, not always dominated by literature.
A crucial event in O’Nolan’s life was the sudden death of his father in 1937. No Bohemian, Brian would probably never have flown the nets of family and country, as other writers did. But aged 25 and the household’s only breadwinner, he became overnight the effective patriarch in a family of 12, supporting them unquestioningly for more than a decade.
So he understood the demands of another kind of relativity too. And among those marking the centenary next week will be the brother.
No, not the fictional character from Cruiskeen Lawn, but the last surviving real-life sibling, Micheál: one of a dozen people for whom O’Nolan’s self-sacrifice was his greatest single work.