Flann O’Brien Celebrations

Brian O’Nolan, who wrote under the pseudonyms of Flann O’Brien and Myles na gCopaleen (among others), was born on October 5th, 1911 in Strabane, Co. Tyrone. Mylesday,a celebration of O’Brien/na gCopaleen/O’Nolan, was held in the Palace Bar, Fleet Street, Dublin on 1st April, the anniversary of his death. A number of further events are planned to celebrate O’Nolan’s centenary year. A Flann O’Brien conference will be hold in the University of Vienna next July 24th to 26th where the keynote address will be given by esteemed Irish poet and author Anthony Cronin. Trinity College Dublin will host a conference examining O’Nolan’s work and legacy in the twenty-first century at the Flann O’Brien Centenary Conference on 14th- 15th October. The writer’s alma mater, University College Dublin, plans to mark the centenary on the date of his birth, October 5th, at Newman House on St Stephen’s Green. The focus of one of the UCD talks will be the significance of the university’s old physics theatre as a location in At Swim-Two-Birds. The Nanyang Technological University, Singapore is organizing a Flann O’Brien Centenary Symposium at its International Conference of Literature and the Arts from June 24th to 26th 2011 in acknowledgement of the extraordinary influence of Flann O’Brien’s work on postmodernism, avant garde fiction, metafiction, and innovative fiction in general.