John McGahern
John McGahern (12 November 1934 – 30 March 2006) was an Irish writer and novelist. He is regarded as one of the most important writers of the latter half of the twentieth century.
John McGahern
12 November 1934
Dublin; raised at Corramahon, Ballinamore, County Leitrim, Ireland
30 March 2006 (aged 71)
Mater Hospital, Dublin, Ireland
St Patrick's Church, Aughawillan
Sean
Writer
English
Irish
Irish
20th – 21st century
Novel, short story
Annikki Laaksi (married 1965, divorced 1969); Madeline Green (married 1973)[1]
Joseph John Kelly, born on 07 January 1964 at Dulwich Hospital, London.
Known for the detailed dissection of Irish life found in works such as The Barracks, The Dark and Amongst Women, he was hailed by The Observer as "the greatest living Irish novelist" [2] and in its obituary The Guardian described him as "arguably the most important Irish novelist since Samuel Beckett".[3]
Biography[edit]
Born in Dublin in the then Irish Free State, John McGahern was initially raised at Corramahon, a townland located just over a mile east-north-east from the small town of Ballinamore in the south-east of County Leitrim.[4][5][6] The eldest of seven (two sons and five daughters), he was raised alongside his siblings on the small farm at Corramahon.[5] McGahern's mother, Susan (née McManus), ran the farm (with some local help), while also maintaining a job as a primary school teacher at the local national school, Aughawillan National School.[4] The school was located in the townland of Aughawillan, right beside Corramahon, just over a mile east-north-east from Ballinamore; Aughawillan townland is very close to County Leitrim's boundary with the north-western part of neighbouring County Cavan.[7] Susan and her family were local, the McManus family home being in the townland of Drumderg, right beside the townland of Corraleehan, a few miles north of Ballinamore.[4][5][8][9] Drumderg townland is right beside County Cavan, with the county boundary between County Leitrim and County Cavan, and, therefore, the provincial boundary between Connacht and Ulster, running along the edge of the townland, Drumderg being on the Leitrim side of the county boundary.[8] His father, Sergeant Francis (Frank) McGahern, was a native of Scrabby (later renamed Loch Gowna in 1950), a village on the shores of Lough Gowna in the west of County Cavan.[4][5][10][11][12]
Sergeant Frank McGahern first met the then Susan McManus in 1924 in Ballinamore, when he was posted there, just after the Irish Civil War, as a garda with An Garda Síochána; she was working in the town as a primary school teacher at the time.[5][10] Susan had trained as a teacher at Trinity College, Dublin (TCD), having won a scholarship to study there.[4][13] Following her graduation, she had returned to her native South Leitrim. Frank and Susan finally married at St. Bridget's Church at Corraleehan (also known as Corraleehan Chapel), near Ballinamore, in August 1932.[5][9] Sergeant McGahern later served with An Garda Síochána in Cootehall, a village in the far north of County Roscommon, an area adjacent to South Leitrim, where he lived in Cootehall Garda Barracks, around twenty miles distant from his family.[4][5] McGahern's mother died of cancer in 1944, when John was 10, resulting in the uprooting of the McGahern children to their new home with their father in Cootehall Garda Barracks.[4][14] Sgt. McGahern was quite a violent man, being physically abusive to his children.[4][5][10]
In the years following his mother's death, McGahern completed his primary schooling in the local primary school, and ultimately won a scholarship to the Presentation Brothers secondary school in Carrick-on-Shannon. Having travelled daily to complete his second-level education, McGahern continued to accumulate academic accolades by winning the county scholarship in his Leaving Certificate enabling him to continue his education to third level.[14]
McGahern was offered a place at St Patrick's College of Education[15] in Drumcondra where he trained to be a teacher. Upon graduation, he began his career as a primary school teacher at Scoil Eoin Báiste (Belgrove), a national school in Clontarf, where, for a period, he taught the academic Declan Kiberd. He returned to third-level education in University College, Dublin (UCD), where he graduated in 1957.[15] He was dismissed from Scoil Eoin Báiste on the orders of The Most Rev. Dr John Charles McQuaid, Archbishop of Dublin.[16]
He was first published by the London literary and arts review, X,[17] which published in 1961 an extract from his first – abandoned – novel, The End or Beginning of Love.
McGahern married his first wife, Finnish-born Annikki Laaksi, in 1965 and in the same year published his second novel, The Dark which was banned by the Irish Censorship Board for its alleged pornographic content along with its implied sexual abuse by the protagonist's father. Due to the controversy which was stirred by the book's publication, McGahern was dismissed from his teaching post and forced to move to England where he worked in a variety of jobs, including on building sites, before returning to Ireland to live and work on a small farm that he bought near Fenagh, a village near Ballinamore, in the south-east of County Leitrim.[18] The farm was located in the townland of Aughaboneill, just south of Foxfield and a short distance south-west of Fenagh.[13][19][20][21]
McGahern divorced in 1969, and married Madeline Green in 1973.[1]
He died from cancer in the Mater Hospital in Dublin on 30 March 2006, aged 71. He is buried in St Patrick's Church, Aughawillan, alongside his mother.[22]
Other writing[edit]
McGahern is also considered a master of the Irish tradition of the short story. Several collections were published as well as Love of the World, a collection of non-fiction essays. His autobiography, Memoir (All Will be Well: a Memoir in the US), was published in 2005 a year before his death outlining numerous influential moments in his life which critics often speculated were present within his earlier work. Andrew Motion wrote "In a tremendously distinguished career, he has never written more movingly, or with a sharper eye".[27]
Influence[edit]
McGahern's work has been very influential in Ireland and elsewhere.[1] A younger generation of Irish writers, such as Colm Tóibín, as well as contemporaries such as Eamonn McGrath, have been influenced by his writing.[28]
His work has been translated into many languages, in particular French.[29]
McGahern was a member of the Irish Arts honorary organisation Aosdána and won many other awards (including being appointed a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres). He was visiting professor at many universities including Colgate University and the University of Notre Dame (United States), University of Victoria (Canada), Durham University (Great Britain), UCD and NUI Galway (Ireland). His other awards included:
He was also a farmer in his native South Leitrim,[19] although he liked to joke that it was the writing that kept the farm rather than the farming revenue allowing him to write.