An Béal Bocht

Background

The book is a not unkindly parody of the genre of Gaeltacht autobiographies, such as Tomás Ó Criomhthain's autobiography An t-Oileánach (The Islandman), or Peig Sayers' autobiography Peig, which recounts her life, especially the latter half, as a series of misfortunes in which much of her family die by disease, drowning or other mishap. Books of this genre were part of the Irish language syllabus in the Irish school system and thus mandatory reading for generations of children from independence in 1921. O'Nolan was in fact a great admirer of An t-Oileánach, which is widely regarded as being the greatest work of the genre, but critic Declan Kiberd has noted how O'Nolan's admiration for a writer tended to express itself as parody of the writer's work.

The Irish expression "to put on the poor mouth," ("an béal bocht a chur ort" in Irish) is mildly pejorative and refers to the practice, often associated with peasant farmers, of exaggerating the direness of one's situation, particularly financially, to evoke sympathy, charity and perhaps the forbearance of creditors and landlords or generosity of customers. The title may also be a parody of that of the Irish language reader An Saol Mór (The Great Life) (in Irish, béal and saol are near-rhymes). The title is, perhaps, more likely to be a parody on 'An Béal Beo' (The Living Tongue) by Tomas Ó Máille, published by An Gúm 1936.

One of the recurring figures of speech in the book is the line from Ó Criomhthain's An t-Oileánach, ...mar ná beidh ár leithéidí arís ann, "...for our likes will not be (seen) again"; variations of it appear throughout An Béal Bocht.

All of O'Nolan's other novels were published under the pseudonym Flann O'Brien; this is the only one for which he employed the "Myles na gCopaleen" pseudonym that he was then using for his celebrated Irish Times column Cruiskeen Lawn. (Subsequently O'Nolan altered the newspaper byline slightly to the more anglicised "Myles na Gopaleen".) Neither is a real Irish surname, however. Both derive from a character named Myles-na-Coppaleen in Dion Boucicault's 1860 play The Colleen Bawn. This, in turn, comes from the Irish na gcapaillín, "of the little horses". As if to confuse matters, the English translation of An Béal Bocht is published as the work of "Flann O'Brien".

Plot

An Béal Bocht is set in Corca Dhorcha, (Corkadoragha, Corkadorkey), a remote region of Ireland where it never stops raining and everyone lives in desperate poverty (and always will) while talking in "the learned smooth Gaelic". It is a memoir of one Bónapárt Ó Cúnasa (Bonaparte O'Coonassa), a resident of this region, beginning at his very birth. At one point the area is visited by hordes of Dublin Gaeilgeoirí (Irish language lovers), who explain that not only should one always speak Irish, but also every sentence one utters should be about the language question. However, they eventually abandon the area because the poverty is too poor, the authenticity too authentic and the Gaelicism too Gaelic. The narrator, after a series of bloodcurdling adventures, is eventually sent to prison on a false murder charge, and there, "safe in jail and free from the miseries of life", has the chance to write this most affecting memoir of our times.

Play

The book was adapted for stage by Paul Lee and first presented in the pub "An Béal Bocht", Charlemont Street, Dublin, for the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1989, directed by Ronan Smith.

Film

Irish film director Tom Collins has adapted the classic tale as an animation featuring Bob Quinn, Owen McDonnell and Tommy Tiernan.