“I have lived a long and fascinating life.”
And with that sentence, Janet Behan shows a mastery of understatement.
It’s not just the family heritage – Brendan’s Borstal Boy, Brian’s Mother Of All The Behans. Nor is it the great uncle that wrote the Irish national anthem. It’s her own struggles and triumphs as a woman, as a mother, as a writer and as herself that makes her story so fascinating.
I have to admit, this was the most nerve-wracking of the three interviews so far, simply because I didn’t know Janet prior to the project, but she made me feel welcome and made the job easy with both her humour and her openness. She explodes myths, she is frank in her opinions and she gives my sometimes-incoherent questions a consideration they don’t always deserve.
As ever, we could have gone on for longer and perhaps one day we will. There are so many more tales she has to tell and I look forward to hearing, seeing or reading them one day.
In the meantime, there’s this…
https://the-plastic-podcasts.castos.com/episodes/janet-behan-the-podcast
