Painter, draughtsman and teacher, born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. He studied at Belfast College of Art, 1949–53, in 1954 starting to teach at St Mary’s College of Education. Flanagan was a notable landscape watercolourist. He participated in many mixed exhibitions, including Four Ulster Painters, at Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, 1965; Two Irish Painters, with Colin Middleton, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry, 1968; The Gordon Lambert Collection, at Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, 1972; Armstrong Gallery, New York, and Smithsonian Institution, Washington, and tour, 1986; and Contemporary Artists from Ireland, Austin/Desmond Fine Art, 1990. Flanagan had a solo show at CEMA, Belfast, 1961, later exhibitions including an Arts Council of Northern Ireland 1967–77 retrospective in 1977 and Places, 1960–85, Fermanagh County Museum, 1986.