This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1958.
Brendan Francis Aidan Behan was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and Irish Republican, an activist who wrote in both English and Irish. His widely acknowledged alcohol dependence, despite attempts to treat it, impacted his creative capacities and contributed to health and social problems which curtailed his artistic output and finally his life. In 2023 reports emerged of his allegedly sexually violent behaviour against a young New York publicist, Letty Cottin Pogrebin in the early 1960s.
A borstal was a type of youth detention centre in the United Kingdom, several member states of the Commonwealth and the Republic of Ireland. In India, such a detention centre is known as a borstal school.
Borstal Boy is a 1958 autobiographical book by Brendan Behan. The story depicts a young, fervently idealistic Behan, who loses his naïveté over the three years of his sentence to a juvenile borstal, softening his radical Irish republican stance and warming to his British fellow prisoners. From a technical standpoint, the novel is chiefly notable for the art with which it captures the lively dialogue of the Borstal inmates, with a variety of the many subtly distinctive accents of Britain and Ireland intact on the page. Ultimately, Behan demonstrated by his skillful dialogue that working class Irish Catholics and English Protestants actually had more in common with one another through class than they had supposed, and that alleged barriers of religion and ethnicity were merely superficial and imposed by a fearful middle class.
Lee David Ingleby is an English actor who first gained attention with his leading role in the BBC Two miniseries Nature Boy (2000). His other notable roles include Detective Insp. John Bacchus on the BBC's Inspector George Gently (2007–2017), Paul Hughes in The A Word (2016–2020), Det. Tony Myerscough on Netflix's Criminal: UK (2019–2020), and DCS Jim Hobson in ITV's The Long Shadow (2023). Ingleby was the voice of Bob the Builder in the show of the same name from 2015 to 2018. His film credits include Ever After (1998), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004).
Shawn Wayne Hatosy is an American film and television actor and director. He is best known for his roles in the films In & Out, The Faculty, Outside Providence, Anywhere but Here, The Cooler, and Alpha Dog. He is also well known for his role as Detective Sammy Bryant on the TNT crime drama series Southland and starred as Andrew "Pope" Cody in the TNT crime drama series Animal Kingdom.
Holt McCallany is an American actor. He is known for portraying FBI Special Agent Bill Tench on the series Mindhunter (2017–19) and has had leading and supporting roles in various television series and films, including Lights Out, Fight Club, Three Kings, Shot Caller, Wrath of Man, Nightmare Alley, and The Iron Claw.
HM Prison Hollesley Bay, known locally as Hollesley Bay Colony or simply The Colony, is a Category D men's prison and Young Offender Institution, located in the village of Hollesley, about 8 miles (13 km) from the town of Woodbridge in Suffolk, England. The prison is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service.
Peter Sheridan is an Irish playwright, screenwriter and director. He lives in Dublin. His awards include the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 1978. In 1980 he was writer-in-residence in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and his short film, The Breakfast, won several European awards. He wrote the pilot episode of Fair City. He wrote and directed the film Borstal Boy, which was released in 2002. He is the brother of the film director Jim Sheridan.
Frank Grimes is an Irish stage and screen actor.
Faith of My Fathers is a 2005 American biographical drama television film directed by Peter Markle and written by Markle and William Bingham, based on the 1999 memoir of the same name by United States Senator and former United States Navy aviator John McCain. It aired on A&E on Memorial Day, May 30, 2005.
Hollesley is a village and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk east of Ipswich in eastern England. Located on the Bawdsey peninsula five miles south-east of Woodbridge, in 2005 it had a population of 1,400 increasing to 1,581 at the 2011 Census.
Borstal Boy is a play adapted by Frank McMahon from the 1958 autobiographical novel of Irish nationalist Brendan Behan of the same title. The play debuted in 1967 at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, with Frank Grimes as the young Behan. McMahon won a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1970 and Tony Award in 1970 for his adaptation.
Frank McMahon was an American-Irish playwright and broadcasting executive. His adaptation of Brendan Behan's autobiographical Borstal Boy played on Broadway after a long run in Dublin's Abbey Theatre.
The Secret Invasion is a 1964 American war film directed by Roger Corman. It stars Stewart Granger, Raf Vallone, Mickey Rooney, Edd Byrnes, Henry Silva, Mia Massini, and William Campbell. Appearing three years before The Dirty Dozen (1967), the film features a similar World War II mission where convicts are recruited by the Allies for an extremely hazardous operation behind enemy lines.
The Conversion of Chaplain Cohen is a 1963 novel by the American writer and rabbi Herbert Tarr about a young rabbi serving as a United States Air Force military chaplain.
Cyril Alfred "C A" Joyce was a British prison manager and headmaster of an approved school.
"The Sea Around Us" is an Irish folk song written by Dominic Behan. A version recorded by The Ludlows reached number one in the Irish Singles Chart in 1966. Other versions have been recorded by Dermot O'Brien, The Dubliners, Patsy Watchorn and Ron Kavana.
Janet Behan is an English-Irish writer and actress.
Eoin "the Pope" O'Mahony was an Irish barrister, local councillor, and genealogist. He was well known as a "wit, raconteur, [and] fighter for hopeless causes".
