Behan's prison experiences were central to his future writing career. In Mountjoy he wrote his first play, "The Landlady" and also began to write short stories and other prose. It was a literary magazine called "Envoy" (A Review of Literature and Art), founded by John Ryan, that first published Behan's short stories and his first poem. Some of his early work was also published in "The Bell," the leading Irish literary magazine of the time. He also learned Irish in prison and, after his release in 1946, he spent some time in the Gaeltacht areas of Galway and Kerry, where he started writing poetry in Irish.