Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it.
- Brendan Behan

Soon Behan was being sought after on both sides of the Atlantic. And being wined and dined by publishers and critics was not a good thing for someone who described himself as 'a drinker with a writing problem'. By the early 1960s, Behan was very ill, suffering from a diabetic condition that was aggravated by his alcoholism. He found it difficult to write. When the Guinness company commissioned him to write a slogan for them, he sat around for months, drank all the free beer they sent him, and came up with the slogan 'Guinness makes you drunk'.

Recognising Behan's talent as storyteller, his New York publishers put him in front of a tape recorder and transcribed what he said. The results were published as Brendan Behan's Island (1962), Brendan Behan's New York (1964), and Confessions of an Irish Rebel (published posthumously in 1965). Although lacking in the piercing insight of his early work, the wit and humour still shine, and the stories engage.

Behan died in Dublin in 1964.