Curated and performed by Patrick McCabe.
March 10th 2023 saw the opening of The Holy Hour: A Requiem for Brendan Behan, an exhibition which reframed the long-caricatured Dublin writer and went in search of a truer picture of Behan as a man and as an artist. Created by author Patrick McCabe (The Butcher Boy, Breakfast on Pluto, Poguemahone), the exhibition celebrated the centenary of Behan's birth, and mourned the essential tragedy of his short life.
In this captivating audio-visual installation, McCabe brought visitors on a profound, often hilarious – and at times almost psychedelic – voyage through glimpses of Behan's life and work. Through the prism of the Roman Catholic liturgy, McCabe’s Holy Hour blended archive footage, heavy lashings of music, and Behan's own words to cast the Dublin writer in a more nuanced light. A bronze bust of the writer, sculpted in 1970 by Irene Broe, sat on the altar at the front of the exhibition space.
Speaking at the launch, Simon O'Connor, founding Director of MoLI, said: "We have long wanted to celebrate the writer Brendan Behan, and to explore his life as an artist and a sensitive thinker, beyond the media depictions and showmanship of his success. To work with Patrick McCabe on this project was to get a privileged glimpse into a similar kind of virtuosity, humour, and sensibility.”
Patrick McCabe, author, and creator of the exhibition, spoke of the exhibition’s approach to Brendan Behan: “The impulse for The Holy Hour derives from a remark made by Ian Hamilton, of Hutchinson Ltd, Behan's first major publisher. Having spent some hours in his company in the Shelbourne Hotel, Hamilton described Behan as ‘God-branded’. I wanted to discover what he meant by that. I think I did, and, hopefully, visitors to The Holy Hour will share in that experience.”
The exhibition was also rendered as a MoLI-exclusive booklet, titled The Holy Hour, which is available for purchase from the MoLI shop.
