Plaque to Brian O'Nolan/Myles Na Gopaleen/Flann O'Brien in Strabane

This plaque is one of six on the 'Old Water Wall Memorial' at The Bowling Green, Strabane, highlighting sone of Strabane's famous sons and daughters.

 

The plaque reads;

 

"Brian O'Nolan

1911 - 1966

Writer

 

Born in Bowling Green, Strabane into a Gaelic speaking family Brian graduated fron University College, Dublin after a brilliant career as a student, editing a magazine called 'Blather'. He rose to a senior position in the civil service but eventually resigned to become a full time writer. He made a lasting impression on the Dublin literary scene writing for the Irish Times as Myles Na Gopaleen. As Flann O'Brien he wrote many internationally acclaimed novels such as 'The Third Policeman'."

 

Ciarán Ó Nualláin's The Early Life of Brian O'Nolan - Flann O'Brian - Myles na gCopaleen tells us of one family fortean event, at a rented house in Strabane, Co. Tyrone around 1917.

 

'There was a ghost in the house - a poltergeist. As I cannot make any judgment on the matter I will simply record the facts. My mother and my sister Roisin, who was about four years old, slept upstairs in the high part of the house. Brian, Gearoid, myself and another brother - that was the extent of the family at that time - slept downstairs in the front part of the house. We heard nothing unusual and were told nothing of the strange events that occurred until long afterwards.

 

'I do not know how soon it was after our arrival that my mother first became aware of the ghost, but it was not long before she asked her sister, our aunt Teresa, to come and sleep in our house. Mother was afraid to be by herself at night without another adult for company [The O'Nolan's father was a customs and excise official, and spent much time travelling]. Aunt Teresa would come to our house every night after she closed the shop she managed in Market Street. What form did the haunting take? I simply repeat the story as I often heard it from my mother and my aunt:

 

"You would waken in the darkness, knowing that something had just woken you. You would be there waiting - full of anticipation. Presently, you would hear the sash of a window being pulled up roughly, even though you knew all the windows were closed and locked. Then the sound of a small iron ball being rolled across the bedroom floor. This would be followed by the sound of something heavy falling down the stairs making massive thumps."

 

'Things used to happen during the day, too. Occasionally if my mother was in the drawing-room she would hear a great commotion coming from the kitchen as though a couple of hens had come indoors and were flying about. On going to the kitchen to investigate she would find nothing. There would be no hens near the door - indeed the door itself would often be closed. On other occasions she would find everything from the mantelpiece in the drawing-room thrown onto the floor.

 

'Aunt Teresa used to come up from town at about eight o'clock. Usually she'd come in the back door. An odd night my mother would hear her step on the gravel at the side of the house but she would not come in. Again, on going to the kitchen, my mother would find nobody there. Half an hour later she would hear the step again and Teresa would appear.

 

'There was a room in the house that was locked - the landlord neither supplied a key nor said why it was locked. It was a small room close to the kitchen, and you could see into it through a window on the outside of the house. The window was high up in the wall and had iron bars on it, as did all the lower windows except for a few at the front of the house. I remember a day - it must have been after a bad night's visitation by the ghost - when my mother took a kitchen chair and stood on it to look into the room. Later, we copied her as children do, without knowing why. I could see nothing through the window other than a piece of shelf and the floor.

 

'Uncle Peter, a Carmelite from Aungier Street in Dublin, visited us and was asked to say Mass in the house. He did and I remember the occasion very well because I had to learn the Latin responses so that I could serve the Mass. The Mass was celebrated in the drawing-room.

 

'There was another odd thing about our haunted house in Strabane. My mother had a clutch of hens with a hen-house near the house itself. Foot nor claw would any of those hens put inside that hen-house. I often tried to coax them into the house with no success - they refused to shelter in it at night. Instead they flew up into the trees at the side of the house and roosted there. Nights of hard frost or strong gales made no difference - they elected to roost in the trees.'

Done