In 2008 he starred in and co-directed Brendan at the Chelsea by Janet Behan, playing the Irish playwright Brendan Behan.
Her son, Cecil ffrench Salkeld was one of the leading Irish artists of the day; her granddaughter Beatrice married Brendan Behan.
Despite his lingering paralysis he recited The Lament for Brendan Behan after which everyone in the studio, lead by Ronnie Drew, sang The Auld Triangle.
The song references a range of Irish playwrights and writers including Oscar Wilde, Brendan Behan, Sean O’Casey, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, Edna O’Brien and Laurence Sterne.
She also played a male role in Brendan Behan's play The Hostage and appeared in The One With the Oven, at the Royal Court Theatre.
As an illustrator he studied under James Boswell, and worked with a number of eminent authors, including Robert Graves, Graham Greene, Brendan Behan, Lawrence Durrell, and William Golding.
'When I open the pages, I duck' was Brendan Behan’s description of reading the Sunday Press, for the habit of published memoirs of veterans (usually those aligned to Fianna Fáil) of the War of Independence.
Brendan Behan | Brendan Fraser | Brendan Perry | Brendan Byrne | Dominic Behan | Brendan O'Carroll | Brendan Benson | Brendan Coyle | Brendan Bowyer | Brendan Joyce | Johnny Behan | David Brendan Hopes | Brendan Steele | Brendan Shine | Brendan Shanahan | Brendan O'Leary | Brendan Nelson | Brendan Keyes | Brendan I. Koerner | Brendan Grace | Brendan Gleeson | Brendan Dolan | Brendan Beiser | Brendan | Brendan Taylor | Brendan Taman | Brendan Sexton III | Brendan O'Brien (music producer) | Brendan O'Brien | Brendan McKay |
Following Brendan Behan's death, his widow had a child with Goulding called Paudge Behan; the two men were described as "good friends".
In the play, a number of writers, historic, literary or public figures, and scientists are mentioned to illustrate O’Nolan’s colorful and over-populated universe, such as Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, Graham Greene, James Joyce, Fionn mac Cumhaill, Harry Rowohlt, Homer, Jonathan Swift, George Bernhard Shaw, the Marx Brothers, Brendan Behan, Éamon de Valera, Karl Kraus, Sherlock Holmes, and Erwin Schrödinger.
He directed over seventy productions by a great number of writers, including Truman Capote, Jean Cocteau, Thornton Wilder, Jean Genet and Brendan Behan.
“The Day Lady Died” begins, “It is 12:20 in New York a Friday/three days after Bastille day, yes/it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine.” In the poem, he references Paul Verlaine, New World Writing, Brendan Behan, Jean Genet’s plays The Balcony and The Blacks and New York locations like the Golden Griffin and the Ziegfeld Theatre.
He trained at the College of Dramatic Art, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Glasgow, where, inter alia, he played roles in Brendan Behan's The Hostage and The Zykovs by Maxim Gorky.
A number of famous patrons are known to have visited the establishment, including author James Joyce, who mentioned the pub in his novel Ulysses; Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels; Robert Emmet also lived there for some time; others include Brendan Behan, Wolfe Tone and Daniel O'Connell.