A favourite writer of mine (and indeed many of the Plain People of Ireland) passed away on April Fools Day 1966. Today on walking tour duty I spotted a poster for ‘Myles Day’ in The Palace bar window advertising a day in celebration of the man. I imagine a day means a day and a night.
About three years ago I was given my da’s old copies of The Third Policeman and At Swim Two Birds and I loved them. It wasn’t long until I’d built up a fine collection of his works.Seán Ó Faoláin, Oscar Wilde and Flann O’Brien are three writers that really do make me love Irish literature. I take any chance to throw a Myles quote into a conversation, and am delighted to see new found appreciation for his writing in recent years from all corners.
Anyway, the poster in the window….
Mylesday will be held in the Palace Bar, Fleet Street, Dublin, from 2:00 on 1st April, 2011. Along with the assembled glitterati, we are hoping that you, the Plain People of Ireland, will overcome your inherent shyness, and come along to contribute your own favourite pieces from the works of Myles.
With nowhere to be on Friday until 7.45 (The Dublin Derby), I’ll pop in and have a look.
A Wall Street Journal article on Flann O’Brien which somehow passed me by until now makes for excellent reading if you haven’t seen it yet.
Every prominent Irish writer from the mid-1930s until O’Brien’s death in 1966—on April Fool’s Day, yet—saw him drunk. Nuala O’Faolain was the last, writing in her acclaimed 1996 memoir “Are You Somebody?” that she “saw Myles na gCopaleen urinate against the counter in Neary’s one night.”
Charming.
The Palace was always The Palace. The Pearl was on that bit of Fleet Street across Westmorland Street. That big fuck-off hotel which takes up the whole block occupies the site now. I don’t remember when it closed down (late 70s?) but it still had a plastic ghost sign in the early 80s over an unremarkable 70’s frontage. I used to regularly walk past it at lunchtime and nearly always heard someone practicing a cello from within. The sign was plastic; I seem to remember a blue background with black letters. It wasn’t quite robbable then but it still pains me that the building was probably demolished with the sign left intact.
Regarding O’Faolain’s comment, I’ve always understood from conversations with older members of my family that most of these ‘characters’ were boorish arseholes whom the long-suffering ‘plain person’ found annoying and embarrassing. Which has often made me think about boring idiots and literary pissheads I’ve come across in Dublin pubs and bars over the years. Will these guys be up there with Myles, Kavanagh and Behan in 50 years time?
Don’t mean to be pedantic about The Pearl, just thought you’d like to know!
Cheers for that.
http://www.fantasyjackpalance.com/fjp/photos/city/b001/pearl.jpg ?
Looks horrible!
Yeah, it would’ve been hard liberating the sign for posterity! Notice it says The Pearl Bar. The bar/lounge thing mattered in those days and you were less likely tp meet a woman drinking in the former than you were in the latter. I think either Paddy Campbell or Tony Grey have written something about the flight from The Pearl to The Palace in the ’50s. There was probably drink invovled…
Love the pic! That’s taken from the first Bloomsday in Dublin – wonder if Myles Day will take off as well – hopefully 🙂
Who’s who in the picture?
Please do tell
It’s a pic of the first ever Bloomsday celebration, which had to be abandoned half way through because of the “ardent spirits” of the participants!
l-r: painter John Ryan, literary critic Anthony Cronin, Myles himself, the great Patrick Kavanagh, and James Joyce’s cousin Tom Joyce.
[…] brother says (if you get that you’re in) that Myles Day will be excellent. Why wouldn’t it be? I’m hoping to drop into The Palace Bar on Friday […]