John McGahern

Date of Birth:

12 November 1934

John McGahern (12 November 1934 – 30 March 2006) was an Irish writer and novelist. 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" and in its obituary The Guardian described him as "arguably the most important Irish novelist since Samuel Beckett". Born in Dublin, 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. The eldest of seven (two sons and five daughters), his father was police sergeant whom young McGahern experienced as strict and uncompromising. His mother, Susan, died from cancer when McGahern was ten years-old. 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 the third level. McGahern was offered a place at St Patrick's College of Education 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. He returned to third-level education in University College, Dublin (UCD), where he graduated in 1957. He was dismissed from Scoil Eoin Báiste on the orders of John Charles McQuaid, Archbishop of Dublin. He was first published by the London literary and arts review, X, 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. McGahern divorced in 1969, and married Madeline Green in 1973. 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. Source: Wikipedia.org