‘Our own good Editor’: Brian O’Nolan, Niall Montgomery and the Drafts of the Cruiskeen Lawn

Although the Niall Montgomery papers housed at the National Library of Ireland shows that Montgomery contributed to the Cruiskeen Lawn, researchers without access to Dublin have been unable to identify the specific columns he was involved with. To remedy this lack, our team located the drafts in the National Library within The Irish Times database and present here a list of the columns arising from Montgomery’s drafts. The list and our analysis show that we cannot divide the Cruiskeen Lawn neatly into the columns written by Brian O’Nolan and those written by Montgomery. Rather, the majority of the drafts Montgomery produced were edited by O’Nolan, with further editorial work possibly conducted by The Irish Times. As a result, by mapping Montgomery’s involvement with the Cruiskeen Lawn we recognise the columns as palimpsests of authorial involvement and records of co-authorship. We also gain new insights into O’Nolan as an editor who had very firm attitudes to the tone and presentation of the Myles na gCopaleen material.