Brendan Behan Statue

This bench is very aesthetically pleasing and is often a place for my mother to rest as she walks home from the city centre. It is located on the royal canal at Binn’s Bridge between Drumcondra and Dorset street. This area of the canal was renovated during the boomtimes and i’m so happy that time and money was spent making the area so lovely. I remember seeing young boys from the local area swimming and diving in from the lock beside the bridge. I suppose that is against the law now and the water is just too dirty and dangerous. There have been a few bodies found in the canal over the years so is infamous in bad ways as well as good. But it is a lovely walk from here up to Crossguns bridge and beyond all the way to Ashtown.
Many people i’d imagine are ignorant as to who Brendan Behan is but i had to study the book the Borstal boy in school! He was born in the North Inner city and was a member of the IRA and was incarcerated for many years. However for some reason he is considered both Irish and English which is bizarre. If someone can enlighten me on this please do.
His uncle wrote the Irish anthem so there was both literature and politics in his family.

Brendan, where have you been? One of my favourite Irish writers, who really lived up to his reputation. And this statue at a location where only very few tourists will take a picture is quite fitting. I think he would have even liked the drunks and and low-​lifes that hang around this part of the Royal Canal in summer.

i like the brendan behan statue. it looks so real looking. but for those out for a pint, remember its a statue sitting on the seat, and dont start having a chat with it like my brother did lol

A hungry feeling
Came o’er me stealing
And the mice were squealing
In my prison cell
And that auld triangle went jingle-​jangle
All along the banks of the Royal Canal!
So wrote Brendan Behan who grew up just minutes away on
Russell street from where this bronze statue of him unveiled in 2003 now stands. Mountjoy Prison which looms menacingly in the near distance, does indeed stand on the banks of this canal. It’s where the 19year old Brendan served part of what was to be a 4-​year term for taking a potshot at 2 detectives at an Easter rising commemoration in Glasnevin. Indeed ‘The Auld Triangle’, itself which featured in his most well known play ‘The Quare Fellow’, features here in the form of 4 small interlocking triangles on the bronze bench that the life size Brendan figure sits upon. It’s a nice, quirky piece of work with a lot of the wit & humour of the man reflected in it. His head is turned attentatively to a bird perched on the end of the bench.
The work of a sculptor called John Coll, it’s almost a reaction to the similar & more well known statue of one-​time friend & later bitter rival Patrick Kavanagh, that stands on the traditionally more refined surroundings of the Grand Canal to the south of the Liffey. Brendan was fiercely proud of being a northside Dub.
I was told that that the statue, which is next to a lock gate, just by the point where lower Dorset street crosses over the canal, is a favourite hangout for alcoholic down & outs. Well I was the only one there the day I went!
Brendan was a true larger than life character, but he was also down to earth and he certainly belongs more here than in one of the more touristy parts of the city.
I always find it difficult to come to terms with something as reverent as a statue commemorating heroes of mine who are to a fault gloriously irreverent!
One of my favourite & well known of Brendan’s quotes is:
«I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.»
But it’s a suitably characterful piece of work, it doesn’t really match the image I have of him. Though the hairs good.
My favourite photo is of him with quizzical glare, and crooked mouth, chin jutting out determinedly whilst sat next to a sleeping drunk. Of course sleeping drunks can still sit next to him, and for someone like myself whose long had a great love of all things Brendan it’s a must to make your way along Dorset street to see & experience his environment as it is today.