The Brother

From Pádraig Ó Méalóid’s essay on Flann O’Brien, gorse no. 3:

One day, not too long ago, I spotted Micheál Ó Nualláin, the only surviving member of the twelve siblings, and eighty-six years old himself, waiting for a bus out to Monkstown. I should go and ask him, I thought. But did I want to? Did I want to actually solve this, to know for sure if it was true or untrue? I’d already done a ridiculous amount of digging, involving visits to both the National Library here in Dublin and the British Library in London, much correspondence with lots of kind and helpful people, and spent far too much money buying books that ultimately expanded, rather than diminished, the mystery here. If I asked the question, all that would be as nothing. I thought about it, and watched his bus arrive, watched him get on it, and wondered if I’d made the right decision, not approaching. And I decided that I definitely should have asked him, because I might never get another chance.

Fortunately, I got another chance. A while after that first existential encounter, I saw him again at the bus stop. This time, reader, I asked him. ‘I don’t think so,’ said Micheál, ‘but you wouldn’t know. It’s the kind of thing he’d do, though.’

RIP Micheál Ó Nualláin.