We guiltily glossed over St. Patrick’s Day here—but what better way to celebrate, albeit a bit belatedly, than to commemorate a fine Irish writer who died of the drink a few days after? Today marks the 46th anniversary of the death of Brendan Behan: poet, playwright, novelist, short story writer, IRA foot soldier, pornographer, and snake-wearer. He was claimed to have told a Canadian reporter that he decided to visit because “I saw a picture at the airport saying ‘Drink Canada Dry’ so I thought I’d come here and try”. On A Journey Round My Skull‘s profile of Behan, Gilbert Alter-Gilbert noted:

The champion toper, when three sheets to the wind, and flush with a fresh royalty payment for one of his books, would routinely pass out money to anyone who approached him with a hard luck story, then trundle out of the tap room, a besotted grizzly bear of a man, singing in the streets, stumbling in the gutters, bumping into lampposts, and carrying on loud conversations, at all hours, with nonexistent respondents.

And, though I’m not blessed with Irish blood myself, Behan was all too pleased to point out that there’s common ground to be found everywhere: “Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis.” Happy late St. Patrick’s Day from Like Fire—may we enjoy our vices but not die from them just yet.

(Photo of Behan Behan with snake at the Phoenix Park Zoo, Dublin, 1959 via John McNab, whose Writers, Poets and Journalists photostream is worth checking out.)