PETER QUINN
The last time I saw Brendan was in Burke Rehabilitation hospital shortly after Christmas. He’d been hospitalized since August. We talked about the disability he was dealing with. He spoke matter-of-factly, without a note of complaint or self-pity. He wasn’t despairing or resigned. He was determined to get home and get back to work. In the time I knew him--too short a time--I wondered at the courage with which he faced challenges of writing and teaching, and mastered tasks most of us don’t give a second thought to. He was a voracious reader and a skilled teacher. He had a razor-sharp mind, an irrepressible sense of humor and an ability to wrestle with the absurd. He refused to let the paralysis he suffered dictate his life. He taught me by example never to be intimidated by the obstacles fate sometimes puts in our way. He found meaning in each day and made the rest. The last time I saw Brendan, he brought up his love of Yeats and the comfort and enjoyment he found in his poetry. For me, Brendan will always embody the poet’s hope that now and in the days to come “we may be / Still the indomitable Irishry.”
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KAREN DALY
Impresario… a grand word befitting Brendan.
For years, he gave so much to Irish American Writers & Artists: creating community, encouraging artists, recruiting volunteers and working behind the scenes. And that was one aspect of his full life of writing, teaching and connecting.
At salons and events, Brendan was often at the microphone, hosting or reading and in the room, charming, socializing. Of countless images, this one speaks volumes to me. Brendan is at the center, surrounded by people who adored him. Here they happen to be women, but men loved him too. I have witnessed their tears.
It’s haunting to note that this picture was taken two years ago nearly to the day as I write this. We were celebrating a program that was months in the making and that was a memorable success. An overflow crowd came to the cell theater on a bitterly cold Sunday. We’ve had many memorable nights, of course, but this one was a special achievement, the release of a video program interviewing seniors about their immigration stories. A major project that Brendan and dedicated colleagues poured their hearts and considerable skills into.
At the time this picture was posted on Facebook, our impresario Brendan added the comment “Yay Team.” Just two words from a man of enormous intellect and sensitivity, they show his generous, playful spirit, gathering all to him. In reply, dare I say “Yay Brendan” and hope that I told him often enough and thanked him often enough for all he gave.
Karen Daly, second from right, as part of the events team in January 2023.
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ANTHONY MURPHY
Brendan was an award-winning writer, but he was selfless in his championing of others’ burgeoning talent. He was a teacher, and he spent a lot of time reading, listening and giving opportunities to new voices. He had the ability and wherewithal, in his capacity as salon director with the IAW&A, to provide a stage and an audience for neophyte novelists and old hacks alike. Brendan welcomed everyone and more importantly, he paid attention.
He gave me an opportunity when he asked me to showcase my new publication alongside some great Irish American writers at the Irish Arts Center in New York City. I got to share my words with a new audience, to network and to make contacts and potential friends. It boosted my confidence in my writing and opened possibilities.
Soon after that Brendan asked me to help at the salons. We would get the “cast-list” together and produce the evening. Brendan was always positive in his appraisal of the presenters, even if he sometimes wished he had a hook. I’ll miss our meet-ups, and his sharp assessment of the characters in that world. He was a very confident and capable man and I learned from him. I’ll miss our debriefing sessions also; he’s gone too soon - Brendan your bar tab is still open!
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KEVIN HOLOHAN
I was honored to be asked to contribute a few words about Brendan here. But then I moved into reluctant schoolboy mode, putting off homework until the last possible minute on a Sunday night. I wanted to write something. I did not want to write something. (You and your feckin’ Beckett, says Brendan.) Writing something would be an admission that Brendan was gone and, like so many of us who knew him, I am still struggling with the abrupt sadness of that.
Then it was too many words and none of them the right ones. Brendan: avid reader, skillful writer, exacting teacher would recognize that struggle all too well.
My heart goes out to all of Brendan's family, friends, colleagues and students: the room just got a little darker. Brendan was great company. He was a hugely encouraging and supportive presence for any artist in his ambit. Like his IAW&A partner-in-crime over so many years, the late Malachy McCourt, Brendan was always glad to see you, always had time to chat and always made you feel welcome. He gave so much to the organization and always showed up for this friends. In a fanciful way I like to think himself and Malachy are reunited in some where-ever-after and up to no good, annoying pompous hypocrites. I will miss Brendan’s mischievous sense of humor and the ongoing conversation of these past years. I will miss seeing him and his witty emails from his “data injection device” and much, much more.
Draft #5 and still too many words and still not the right ones.
Slán leat, Brendan.
Honor Molloy, Michelle Woods and Brendan Costello pictured at the Brooklyn launch of Kevin Holohan’s novel “So You Want to Run a Country?” last spring.
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HONOR MOLLOY & JOSEPH GOODRICH
It was cold-winter – like now. When after a lively IAWA salon at the Thalia, a bunch of us battled the wind heading south along Broadway to Cleopatra’s Needle’s jazzy interior. That was where we met Brendan for the first time with his mudcloth kufi hat tipped on his head like a merry king.
Around the table, we had a fervent discussion about Joyce, complete with quotes, jokes, laughs, ribaldry and poetry. Brendan would scoff if we described him as “brave” or “courageous.” He dealt with his paralysis like a true New Yorker. He accepted it and got on with the business at hand, never asking for sympathy or pity. Fears and frustrations he kept to himself, refusing to be defined by them, and his physical circumstance is not the first thing that comes to mind when we remember him. We think instead of his passionate advocacy for his students, for IAWA, for fine writing and fine writers, and his generosity of spirit – for what he gave to the world.
Prompted by the devastation wrought by the pandemic, in 2021 Brendan wrote “What The Blind Lost,” an essay published in the Village Voice.
Its title is from a poem by Miller Williams:
What the blind lost when radio
gave way to TV,
what the deaf lost when movies
stopped spelling out words and spoke,
was a way back in. Always, this desire
to be inside again, when the doors are closed...
Elegantly, unsentimentally, Brendan described the effects of Covid on the world and how “the fear, helplessness, frustration bordering on rage, and mourning so many of us have felt during this crazy time are similar to emotions I’ve experienced living with a disability.”
Near the end of the piece, Brendan tells us:
“For a moment, or really a series of random moments, I sensed I was moving away from, rather than toward death. My transformation, from a patient who needed eight hours of home care assistance to a more or less fully independent individual, felt like I was starting over from childhood. I wasn’t just surviving: I was regaining life, rolling back the odometer.”
His Village Voice piece included advice he received when he left the hospital after his accident: “Don’t wait for your friends to come to you. You go to your friends.” Brendan took that advice and applied it unceasingly. Time and again he came to us and invited us to be a part of his life and his work and his community. He never stopped opening doors.
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PETER MCDERMOTT
I had to check the details, the year for instance. Four of us were there, including Honor and Joe. She recalled that Hillary and Trump were on TV screens debating. So, it was 2016. I remember the location on Bridge Street, near Wall; the place had a few narrow steps that were difficult to negotiate. Honor said this past Sunday, “We joyously hoisted Brendan into the bar.” We did.
Brendan was an ever friendly and welcoming face at IAW&A events, but I don’t believe that I’d been involved in a long conversation with him before that night. I remember that he made the case for reading and studying Flannery O’Connor (the centenary of her birth is next month, so perhaps that’s something we can do in his memory).
He was in guide mode in Buffalo in 2023, having offered to drive me around to some places of interest. He got an uncle and aunt-in-law on speaker for additional information. The tenderness between Brendan and his family elders was evident from the way they spoke. They and other family members traveled to the Buffalo event last April when he and IAW&A were honored by the Irish Echo.
A couple of weeks before Buffalo ’24, he made his way into deepest Brooklyn for the launch of Kevin’s new novel. He stayed late for the afters, though he didn’t imbibe in deference to a medical appointment early the next day. The conversation was good, as it usually was when Brendan was around.
At the after-party in Buffalo ‘24, Brendan expressed his hope that the band would play “God Save Ireland,” an unofficial anthem from the era of the Fenians. Maybe he’d heard it played in 2023. Darlene, his sister, told me yesterday, “I’ve lost my comedy partner at the gallows.” Well, the word “gallows” is actually in that song’s first line. It is infectiously upbeat, even if it does make it sound that a date with the scaffold is like winning the lottery, historically speaking. Anyway, the band did indeed opt to start up “God Save Ireland,” and Brendan’s beaming face was a sight to behold. Then, he joined the singing with great enthusiasm.
Brendan and those who knew him might reasonably have hoped for many more such nights of joy and fun. It’s so terribly sad that we know that there won’t be.
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* NOTE ON THE MAIN PHOTOGRAPH
“We photographers have a saying,” said Ray Hegarty: “A good portrait is not taken, a good portrait is given.” This was certainly true, he added, about his portrait made of Brendan Costello at the parade on Skillman Avenue in March 2022. “Brendan was so supportive and patient of the process,” the Dublin-based photographer said.
See also the obituary here and tributes from Brendan Costello's predecessor as president of the Irish American Writers & Artists here, and the Irish Echo's publisher, see here.
