Sounding the Oirish: O'Brien versus Synge "Synge was perhaps the most monstrous phony and buffeon ever to enter our celtic toilet, but he won international fame and money because foreigners extracted strange meanings and nuances from the language he used." Flann O'Brien was a writer obsessed with both nationhood and language, and saw the two as inextricably entwined. Nowhere was this more apparent than in his writings under the pseudonym of Myles na Gopaleen. One particular target of O'Brien's