Conference Review: Palimpsests: The V International Flann O’Brien Conference

Andrew Ferguson, University of Maryland

2011 marked the centennial of the birth of Brian O’Nolan, known more formally under his pen names Flann O’Brien, Myles na gCopaleen, and a host of others, including undoubtedly some yet to be discovered. The First Century of Flann was celebrated with a symposium convened by the International Flann O’Brien Society, with subsequent conferences following every two years. The 2019 event was the fifth of these and the first to be held in O’Nolan’s Dublin—in the O’Brien Centre for Science, even, at his alma mater of University College Dublin (albeit on the suburban Belfield campus rather than among the pubs of his student days, and the O’Brien in question is Irish billionaire Denis, a person rather less worthy of dedicated study).