Irish author John McGahern dies in Dublin

While he was not a man of abundant rock’n’roll credentials, McGahern was a giant of Irish literature, and played a huge part in the struggle by Irish writers and artists for recognition in a country that had, through most of the 20th century, been deeply suspicious and mistrustful of creativity of any kind.

His first book, the award-winning The Barracks was well received, but it was with The Dark that he invoked the wrath of conservative Ireland. The book was banned and he was sacked from his job as a teacher in a school in Clontarf in Dublin, as a result. He lived in London and elsewhere abroad for a number of years but returned to Ireland and moved back to Leitrim, where he had spent part of his childhood – and where he was based for much of the past thirty years with his wife Madeline Green.

His brilliant novel, Amongst Women, set in the West of Ireland that he knew and loved, was nominated for the Booker Prize and was subsequently turned into a successful TV drama. That was followed by the wonderfully resonant That They May Face The Rising Sun (called By The Lake in the US), which was acclaimed as the work of a master of literary economy.

His most recent book Memoir gives a moving and sometimes angry account of his own life story, until the death of his father Frank – of whom McGahern is particularly critical. It offers a remarkable insight into the Ireland of the 1940s and 1950s in particular. But most of all, it is sustained cry of love to the mother that he lost when he was a boy. It has been on the best sellers list for many months – a reflection of the huge affection which has grown in Ireland for a writer of real and magnificently understated genius.

McGahern was described by the Minister for the Arts, John O’Donoghue, as a man of high principle and remarkable courage. He was not one, said the Minister, who ever inclined to bend a knee. Would that there were more like him in this regard.

John McGahern was the recipient of many honours and awards, including the Society of Authors, the American Irish award, the Prix Etrangere Ecureuil and the Chevalier de l'Orde des Artes et des Lettres. He was a current member of the Board of the Arts Council of Ireland.

Hot Press interviewed John McGahern on a number of occasions. He proved to be a man of great wisdom and composure. There was no bitterness at all in the way he spoke, or in what he had to say, even though he had been treated abominably by the Irish state during his early years. He emerged as a character of genuine warmth and real eloquence, qualities that were important also to his work – which has a marvellous, measured, precision. He used language sparingly, paring his work down to the essentials – a technique which lent its quiet lyricism an even greater power.

John McGahern leaves behind an important body of work, which is crucial to understanding Ireland in the 20th century. But more than that, it has the timeless quality of great art, offering a unique and very personal insight into what it is to be human.