2021 International Flann O’Brien Society Awards 

The Father Kurt Fahrt, S.J. Memorial Prizes

Longlist and Nominations

Every two years, to coincide with the International Flann O’Brien Society conference, the Society awards two official prizes to the best book-length publication and best essay-length publication on the writing, life, and reception of Brian O'Nolan (pseud. Flann O'Brien, Myles na gCopaleen). 

We are now opening the nomination process for the 2021 Father Kurt Fahrt, S.J. Memorial Prizes. The winners will be announced at the 110 Myles: Flann O’Brien at a Distance online symposium (24–27 July 2021). 

The selection process will follow the same format as all past editions of the awards. Shortlists for each category (Best Book-Length Publication 2019–20 and Best Essay-Length Publication 2019–20) will be determined by a popular electronic vote. The winners will then be chosen from the shortlists by impartial judges appointed from outside the Society. 

The rules: Each member of the International Flann O’Brien Society may nominate up to 3 titles in any category (3 articles; 3 books; 2 books + 1 article; 2 articles + 1 book... any combination works). Longlisted scholars may nominate their own work. 

Eligible works: All peer-reviewed works of scholarship on Brian O’Nolan and his writing that were published in the years 2019–20 are eligible. The full longlist of candidates is found below. If we’ve missed a publication from this time period, just drop us a line to let us know and we’ll add it to the longlist.

Past Winners - Best Book-Length Publication:

2017–18: Maebh Long, The Collected Letters of Flann O'Brien (Dalkey Archive, 2018) 

2015–16: Flore Coulouma, Diglossia and the Linguistic Turn: Flann O'Brien's Philosophy of Language (Dalkey Archive, 2015)

2013–14: Maebh Long, Assembling Flann O'Brien (London: Bloomsbury, 2014)

2011–12: Neil Murphy and Keith Hopper (eds), Flann O’Brien: Centenary Essays (The Review of Contemporary Fiction 2011)

Past Winners - Best Essay-Length Publication:

2017–18: Ronan Crowley, 'Phwat’s in a nam?: Brian O’Nolan as a Late Revivalist' 

2015–16: Tobias Harris, ‘The Catastrophe of Cliché: Karl Kraus, Cruiskeen Lawn, and the Culture Industry’

2013–14: Jack Fennell, ‘Irelands Enough and Time: Brian O’Nolan’s Science Fiction'

2011–12: Jon Day, ‘Cuttings from Cruiskeen Lawn: Bibliographical Issues in the Republication of Myles na gCopaleen’s Journalism’

And so without further ado, we are pleased to invite you all to submit your 3 nominations (see rules above) from the following longlist to the jury at viennacis.anglistik@univie.ac.at by no later than Friday 28 May 2021. 

Best Book-Length Publication 2019–20

Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (eds), Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020). Available at: https://www.corkuniversitypress.com/Flann-O-Brien-p/9781782054214.htm  

Fionntán de Brún and Antain Mag Shamhráin (eds), Ón nGruagach Gréagach go Myles na gCopaleen: saol agus Saothar Mhuintir Nualláin (Maigh Nuad: An Sagart, 2019). Available at: https://www.litriocht.com/t%C3%A1irge/leachtai-cholm-cille-xlix/?lang=en 

Best Essay-Length Publication 2019–20

Julieta Abella, ‘“He confined his reading to books attired in green covers”: Celtic Re-Telling in At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O‘Brien,’ in Proceedings of the Association of Celtic Students of Ireland & Britain Vol. 7, eds. Julieta Abella and Kieran Walker (Association of Celtic Students of Ireland and Britain, 2020), 141–149.

Julieta Abella, ‘Understanding and Mis-Understanding in Language in Brian O’Nolan’s An Béal Bocht and Cruiskeen Lawn,’ Estudios Irlandeses 15 (March 2020–Feb. 2021): 1–12. Available at: https://doi.org/10.24162/EI2020-9290 

Einat Adar, ‘“the essential inherent interior essence”: The Third Policeman and Early Modern Ontologies,’ Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 251–262. Available at https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2727097 

Catherine O. Ahearn, ‘“Where you bin, bud?” Myles na gCopaleen’s Disappearing Act,’ Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 97–115. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2727038 

Nicholas Allen, ‘Becoming a Republic: Irish Writing in Transition,’ in Irish Literature in Transition, 1940–1980, ed. Eve Patten (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 83–100. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108616348.006 

Jacob L. Bender, ‘The Swift and the Dead: Gulliver’s Séance in The Words Upon the Window-Pane, The Dalkey Archive, and The General in His Labyrinth,’ in Modern Death in Irish and Latin American Literature (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 139–172. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50939-2_7 

Ruben Borg, ‘Funny Being Dead! Tragic and Comic Laughter,’ Fantasies of Self- Mourning: Modernism, the Posthuman and the Finite (Leiden and Boston: Brill | Rodopi, 2019), 140–195.

Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan, ‘Editors’ Introduction,’ Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 1–15. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2726993 

Joseph Brooker, ‘Do Bicycles Dream of Atomic Sheep? Forms of the Fantastic in Flann O’Brien and Philip K. Dick,’ The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 4, no. 2 (Spring 2020): 1–23. Available at: https://doi.org/10.16995/pr.3383 

Daniel Curran, ‘Flann O’Brien, the Absurd and the Authenticity of Death,’ Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 236–250. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2727091 

Fionntán de Brún, ‘An Gruagach Gréagach: Gearóid Ó Nualláin, Beatha Dhuine a Thoil agus An Béal Bocht,’ in Ón nGruagach Gréagach go Myles na gCopaleen: saol agus Saothar Mhuintir Nualláin, eds. Fionntán de Brún and Antain Mag Shamhráin  (Maigh Nuad: An Sagart, 2019), 29–56.

Fionntán de Brún, ‘Utopia, Place and Displacement from Myles na gCopaleen’s Corca Dorcha to Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’s Murúcha,’ in Revivalism and Modern Irish Literature: The anxiety of transmission and the dynamics of renewal (Cork University Press, 2019), 141–170. Available at https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2284378 

Louis de Paor, ‘An té a bhíonn ag gáire, bíonn a leath faoi fhéin: An tAthair Peadar, An tAthair Gearóid agus Brian Ó Nualláin,’ in Ón nGruagach Gréagach go Myles na gCopaleen: saol agus Saothar Mhuintir Nualláin, eds. Fionntán de Brún and Antain Mag Shamhráin  (Maigh Nuad: An Sagart, 2019), 1–28.

Louis de Paor, ‘Lethal in Two Languages: Narrative Form and Cultural Politics in the Fiction of Flann O'Brien and Máirtín Ó Cadhain,’ in The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Fiction, ed. Liam Harte (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 187–203. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198754893.013.16 

Conor Dowling, ‘Carnival and Class Consciousness: Bakhtin and the Free State in At Swim-Two-Birds,’Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 48–60. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2727014 

Katherine Ebury, ‘“nothing in the world would save me from the gallows”: O’Nolan and the Death Penalty,’ Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 34–47. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2727009 

Katherine Ebury, ‘New Contexts for Confession: Brian O’Nolan, Golden Age Crime Fiction, and Theodor Reik,’ The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 4, no. 2 (Spring 2020): 1–22. Available at: https://doi.org/10.16995/pr.3351 

Paul Fagan, ‘Secret Scriptures: Brendan Behan in the Cruiskeen Lawn,’ in Reading Brendan Behan, ed. John McCourt (Cork: Cork University Press, 2019), 163–184. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2390184 

Catherine Flynn, ‘Flann O'Brien, James Joyce, and the Queer Art of Bare Concealment,’ Éire-Ireland 54, no. 3 & 4 (Fall/Winter 2019): 8–36. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1353/eir.2019.0012 

Catherine Flynn, ‘Everybody Here Is under Arrest: Translation and Politics in Cruiskeen Lawn,’ Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 19–33. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2727004 

Alana Gillespie, ‘The Soft Misogyny of Good Intentions: The Mother and Child Scheme, Cruiskeen Lawn, and The Hard Life,’ Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 77–94. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2727027 

Yaeli Greenblatt, ‘“the tattered cloak of his perished skin”: The Body as Costume in ‘Two in One’, At Swim-Two-Birds, and The Third Policeman,’ Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 131–145. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2727050 

Tobias Harris, ‘Blather, Razzle and Dada: Contextualizing Brian O'Nolan's Early Journalism,’ Modernist Cultures 14, no. 2 (2019): 151–171. Available at: https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/pdfplus/10.3366/mod.2019.0248 

Tobias Harris, ‘“sprakin sea Djoytsch?” Brian Ó Nualláin’s Bhark i bPrágrais,’ Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 217–235. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2727085 

Lloyd (Meadhbh) Houston, ‘“Veni, V.D., Vici”: Flann O’Brien, Sexual health and the Literature of Exhaustion,’ Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 146–162. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2727056 

Daniel Hunt, ‘A Chronic Nightmare Dream Interpretation as the “Royal Road” to Understanding the Trauma of the Nameless Narrator of Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman,’ New Hibernia Review 24, no. 3 (Fómhar / Autumn 2020): 90–103. Available at https://doi.org/10.1353/nhr.2020.0022 

Andrew Kalaidjian, ‘The Uncertainty of Late Irish Modernism: Flann O'Brien and Erwin Schrödinger in Dublin,’ Science, Technology, and Irish Modernism, eds. Kathryn Conrad, Cóilín Parsons, and Julie McCormick Weng (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2019), 248–263. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2438672 

Robert Kiely, ‘World-Ecological Satire: Peat, Brian O'Nolan, and the Irish Free State's Energy Regime,’ Irish University Review 16, no. 1 (2019): 90–104. Available at: https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/iur.2019.0382 

Joseph LaBine, ‘Myles na gCopaleen’s “An Scian”: A Knife in the Back of Irish Archivists,’ in Moving Archives, ed. Linda M. Morra (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2020).

Maebh Long, ‘Abject Bodies: Brian O’Nolan and Immunology,’ Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 163–177. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2727062 

Maebh  Long,  ‘Is  It  About  a  Typewriter?  Brian  O’Nolan  and  Technologies of Inscription’, The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 4, no. 2 (Spring 2020): 1–16. Available at: https://doi. org/10.16995/pr.2882 

Nioclás Mac Cathmhaoil, ‘An Béal Bocht agus At Swim-Two-Birds: Diptic Théamach,’ in Ón nGruagach Gréagach go Myles na gCopaleen: saol agus Saothar Mhuintir Nualláin, eds. Fionntán de Brún and Antain Mag Shamhráin  (Maigh Nuad: An Sagart, 2019), – Available at: https://pure.ulster.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/76593235/LCCNMC.pdf 

Michael McAteer, ‘Law and Violence in Ferguson’s Congal, Yeats’s The Herne’s Egg, and O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds,’ Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 197–216. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2727079 

Erika Mihálycsa, ‘“Evidently of the second-hand denomination”: Flann O'Brien's Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, and the Disenchantments of Late Modernism,’ Joyce Studies Annual 2020 (2020): 196–221. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/780838   

Elliott Mills, ‘Origin, Iterability and Violence in The Third Policeman,’ Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 263–277. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2727104 

Richard T. Murphy, ‘Spare-Time Physical Activities: Cruiskeen Lawn, the GAA and the Irish Modernist Body,’ Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 61–76. Available at https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2727022 

Aisling Ní Dhonnchadha, ‘Scéalta bleachtaireachta Chiaráin Uí Nualláin: cúlra agus comhthéacs,’ n Ón nGruagach Gréagach go Myles na gCopaleen: saol agus Saothar Mhuintir Nualláin, eds. Fionntán de Brún and Antain Mag Shamhráin  (Maigh Nuad: An Sagart, 2019), 133–186.

Ian Ó Caoimh, ‘Ciarán Ó Nualláin: gnaithe lorgaireachta agus lorg na muintire,’ in Ón nGruagach Gréagach go Myles na gCopaleen: saol agus Saothar Mhuintir Nualláin, eds. Fionntán de Brún and Antain Mag Shamhráin  (Maigh Nuad: An Sagart, 2019), 99–132.

Brian Ó Catháin, ‘Caoimh(gh)in Ó Nualláin/ Kevin O’Nolan/ ‘Lughaidh Mac Feorais’: fear léinn, fear eagair agus fear litríochta,’ in Ón nGruagach Gréagach go Myles na gCopaleen: saol agus Saothar Mhuintir Nualláin, eds. Fionntán de Brún and Antain Mag Shamhráin  (Maigh Nuad: An Sagart, 2019), 187–264.

Brian Ó Conchubhair, ‘Michael Victor Nolan: a shaol sular phós,’ in Ón nGruagach Gréagach go Myles na gCopaleen: saol agus Saothar Mhuintir Nualláin, eds. Fionntán de Brún and Antain Mag Shamhráin  (Maigh Nuad: An Sagart, 2019), 57–80.

Cillian O'Hogan, ‘Classics, Medievalism and Cultural Politics in Myles na gCopaleen's Cruiskeen Lawn Columns,’ in Classics and Irish Politics, 1916–2016, eds. Isabelle Torrance and Donncha O'Rourke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 156–170. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198864486.003.0008 

Dariusz Pestka, ‘Constructing One’s Self-Identity Through Food: Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and Flann O’Brien,’ in Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication, eds. Jacek Mianowski, Michał Borodo, and Paweł Schreiber (CHam: Springer, 2019), 61–70. Available at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-030-12590-5_5 

Ondřej Pilný, ‘The Brothers Čapek at the Gate: R.U.R. and The Insect Play,’ in Cultural Convergence: The Dublin Gate Theatre, 1928–1960, eds. Ondřej Pilný, Ruud van den Beuken, and Ian R. Walsh (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021 [article published open access 4 November 2020]), 141–173. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57562-5_6 

Siobhán Purcell, ‘Reading the Regional Body: Disability, Prosthetics, and Irish Literary Tradition in The Third Policeman and Molloy,’ Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 181–196. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2727073 

Noam Schiff, ‘“the situation had become deplorably fluid”: Alcohol, Alchemy and Brian O’Nolan’s Metamorphoses,’ Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 116–130. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2727044 

Alistair Stewart, ‘Language and style for psychiatrists: honing our words on Flann O'Brien's grindstone – psychiatry in literature,’ The British Journal of Psychiatry 217, no. 2 (2020): 433-433. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.2020.66  

Barbara Szot, ‘Doubling Dublin: Mimetic and Anti-Mimetic Use of Urban Space in Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds,’ Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 25, no. 2 (2019). Available at: https://ojs.lib.unideb.hu/hjeas/article/view/7144/6557 

W. Michelle Wang, ‘Postmodern Play with Worlds: The Case of At Swim-Two-Birds,’ in Possible Worlds Theory and Contemporary Narratology, eds. Alice Bell and Marie-Laure Ryan (University of Nebraska Press, 2019), 132–156. Available at: https://dr.ntu.edu.sg/bitstream/10356/148313/2/Bell-Ryan_05%20%281%29.pdf

W. Michelle Wang, ‘Play (II): Postmodern Play with Possible Worlds – At Swim-Two-Birds, Lanark,’ in Eternalized Fragments: Reclaiming Aesthetics in Contemporary World Fiction (Ohio State University Press, 2020).

W. Michelle Wang, ‘Literary Sublime (I): Imagination Reigns – The Third Policeman, Invisible Cities,’ in Eternalized Fragments: Reclaiming Aesthetics in Contemporary World Fiction (Ohio State University Press, 2020).

David Wheatley, ‘Samuel Beckett, Flann O’Brien, and the Literature of Absurdity,’ in Irish Literature in Transition, 1940–1980, ed. Eve Patten (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 150–166. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108616348.010 

Caleb Wood Richardson, ‘Gaels,’ in Smyllie's Ireland: Protestants, Independence, and the Man Who Ran the Irish Times (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2019), 131–148.

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