Brian Anthony Brennan (October 4, 1943 - February 21, 2021) was an Irish-Canadian author and historian who specialized in books about the colourful personalities of Western Canada's past. Brian Brennan

Born in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

, Ireland, he migrated to Canada in 1966 and had lived in

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

, Alberta, since 1974. He spent 25 years as a staff writer with the ''

Calgary Herald The ''Calgary Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Publication began in 1883 as ''The Calgary Herald, Mining and Ranche Advocate, and General Advertiser''. It is owned by the Postmedia Network. History ''The C ...

'' writing columns and feature stories. Brennan was part of an attempt by the

Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP; []) was a largely private sector, private-sector trade union, labour union with 150,000 members, active from 1992 to 2013. It was created in 1992 through the merger of three unions: th ...

to organize a union local for the newsroom and negotiate a first contract with the ''Calgary Herald''. Before and during the eight-month strike by journalists in 1999 and 2000, Brennan was a member of the union's bargaining committee. When the strike ended in June 2000 with the dissolution of the union, he left the Herald to devote himself full-time to writing books. He was the first winner of the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award, presented in 2004 for his book ''Romancing the Rockies''. A longtime National Council member of

The Writers' Union of Canada The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC) is the national organization of professionally published writers. TWUC was founded in 1973 to work with governments, publishers, booksellers, and readers to improve the conditions of Canadian writers. TWUC adv ...

, he quit the union in 2018 when the union executive supported a decision by the editor of the union magazine to kill a story about a writers' conference in

San Miguel de Allende San Miguel de Allende () is the principal city in the Municipalities of Mexico, municipality of San Miguel de Allende (municipality), San Miguel de Allende, located in the far eastern part of Guanajuato, Mexico. A part of the Bajío region, the t ...

Mexico that she had commissioned Brennan to write.

Bibliography

*'' Building a Province: 60 Alberta Lives''. Calgary: Fifth House, 2000. *'' Alberta Originals: Stories of Albertans Who Made a Difference''. Calgary: Fifth House, 2001. *'' Scoundrels and Scallywags: Characters from Alberta's Past''. Calgary: Fifth House, 2002. *'' Boondoggles, Bonanzas, and Other Alberta Stories''. Calgary: Fifth House, 2003. *''Romancing the Rockies''. Calgary: Fifth House, 2005. *''How the West was Written: The Life and Times of James H. Gray''. Calgary: Fifth House, 2006. *''The Good Steward: The Ernest C. Manning Story''. Calgary: Fifth House/Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2008. *''Leaving Dublin: Writing My Way from Ireland to Canada''. Calgary: RMB , Rocky Mountain Books, 2011. *''The Calgary Public Library: Inspiring Life Stories Since 1912''. Calgary: Kingsley Publishing, 2012. *''Rogues and Rebels: Unforgettable Characters from Canada's West''. Regina: University of Regina Press, 2015. *''Family Energy: The Story of Bob and Carole Brawn''. Calgary: Kingsley Publishing, 2016. *''Brief Encounters: Conversations with Celebrities''. North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2017.

References

External links

Brian Brennan's home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brennan, Brian 1943 births 2021 deaths Canadian male non-fiction writers 21st-century Canadian historians Canadian male journalists Canadian radio personalities Historians of Canada Irish emigrants to Canada Writers from Dublin (city) Writers from Calgary People educated at Oatlands College