His widely acknowledged alcohol dependence, despite attempts to treat it, impacted his creative capacities and contributed to health and social problems which curtailed his artistic output and finally his life.

There was also a strong emphasis on Irish history and culture in his home, which meant he was steeped in literature and patriotic ballads from an early age.

At the age of 16, Behan joined the IRA, which led to his serving time in a borstal youth prison in the United Kingdom and imprisonment in Ireland.

Subsequently released from prison as part of a general amnesty given by the Fianna Fáil government in 1946, Behan moved between homes in Dublin, Kerry and Connemara and also resided in Paris for a time.

It was well received; however, it was the 1956 production at Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop in Stratford, London, that gained Behan a wider reputation.

"[5] By this point, Behan began spending time with various prominent people such as Harpo Marx and Arthur Miller and was followed by a young Bob Dylan.

Brendan's father Stephen Behan, a house painter who had fought in the War of Independence, read classic literature to the children at bedtime including the works of Zola, Galsworthy, and Maupassant; their mother Kathleen took them on literary tours of the city.

[11][12][13] Biographer Ulick O'Connor wrote that one day, aged eight, Brendan was returning home with his granny and a friend from a pub.

At this stage, Behan left school at 13 to enter apprenticeship to follow in his father's and both grandfathers' footsteps as a house painter.

At 16, Behan joined the IRA and embarked on an unauthorised solo mission to England to set off a bomb at Cammell Laird shipyard.

Refusing to be turned, the 16-year-old Behan was sentenced to three years in a borstal (Hollesley Bay,[14] once under the care of Cyril Joyce[15]) and did not return to Ireland until 1941.

In 1942, during the wartime state of emergency declared by Irish Taoiseach Éamon de Valera, Behan was arrested by the Garda Síochána following a protest of the execution of IRA man George Plant[16] Later that same year Behan was arrested at another commemoration - which the IRA had planned to take place during a Dublin commemoration ceremony for Theobald Wolfe Tone.

It was a literary magazine called Envoy (A Review of Literature and Art), founded by John Ryan, that first published Behan's short stories and his first poem.

During this period he was employed by the Commissioners of Irish Lights,[21] where the lighthouse keeper of Saint John's Point, County Down, recommending his dismissal, described him as “the worst specimen” he had met in 30 years of service, adding that he showed "careless indifference" and "no respect for property".

Behan cultivated a reputation as carouser-in-chief and swayed shoulder-to-shoulder with other literati of the day who used the pub McDaid's as their base: Flann O'Brien, Patrick Kavanagh, Patrick Swift, Anthony Cronin, John Jordan, J. P. Donleavy and artist Desmond MacNamara whose bust of Behan is on display at the National Writers Museum.

Originally called The Twisting of Another Rope and influenced by his time spent in jail, it chronicles the vicissitudes of prison life leading up to the execution of "The quare fellow", a character who is never seen.

Behan generated immense publicity for The Quare Fellow as a result of a drunken appearance on the Malcolm Muggeridge TV show.

Behan loved the story of how, walking along the street in London shortly after this episode, a Cockney approached him and exclaimed that he understood every word he had said—drunk or not—but had not a clue what "that bugger Muggeridge was on about!"

In the end, the hostage dies accidentally during a bungled police raid, revealing the human cost of war, a universal suffering.

In the vivid memoir of his time in St Andrews House, Hollesley Bay Colony Borstal, near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England.

The 1950s literary critic Kenneth Tynan said: "If the English hoard words like misers... Behan sends them out on a spree, ribald, flushed, and spoiling for a fight."

[31] Following his death, his widow had a son, Paudge Behan, with Cathal Goulding, Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army and the Official IRA.

The Pogues' Thousands Are Sailing written by lead guitarist Philip Chevron, features the lyric and in Brendan Behan's footsteps / I danced up and down the street.

Behan's version of the third verse of The Internationale, from Borstal Boy was reproduced on the LP sleeve of Dexys Midnight Runners's debut album, Searching for the Young Soul Rebels.

[37] Australian singer songwriter Paul Kelly wrote Laughing Boy as tribute to Behan, and it was covered by Weddings, Parties, Anything on their Roaring Days album.

Chicago-based band The Tossers wrote the song Breandan Ó Beacháin, released on their 2008 album On A Fine Spring Evening.

This song, which calls "bold Brendan" Ireland's "sweet angry singer", was later covered by the Australian trio The Doug Anthony All Stars, better known as a comedy band, on their album Blue.

Behan's two poems from his work The Hostage, On the eighteenth day of November and The Laughing Boy were translated into Swedish and recorded by Ann Sofi Nilsson on the album När kommer dagen.

In the season 4 Mad Men episode Blowing Smoke, which premiered on 10 October 2010, Midge Daniels introduces Don to her playwright husband, Perry, and says, "When we met, I said he looked like Brendan Behan."

According to the journalist William J. Weatherby, Behan's wife admired Sellers' impersonation of her husband and considered Bedham's references to "the thirst" the most accurate part of the sketch.