Brendan Behan

The writer and talker from North Dublin makes one of his final TV appearances in both an interview and scenes from his funeral.

An opening joke takes on an eerie significance as this was filmed in a Belfast pub less than a month before he died aged 41 on 20th March 1964. His slow responses hint at the effects of drinking and diabetes, emphasised by the unedited footage. The interview then fades into crowded scenes of Behan’s funeral in Glasnevin Cemetery Dublin. He was escorted by an IRA guard of honour at reportedly the largest funeral in Ireland since Michael Collins was buried in the same graveyard.

This material is courtesy of the UTV archive.