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), he was raised alongside his siblings on the small farm at Corramahon. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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 the Garda Síochána; she was working in the town as a primary school teacher at the time. Susan had trained as a teacher at Trinity College, Dublin (TCD), having won a scholarship to study there. 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. Sergeant McGahern later served with the 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. 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. Sgt. McGahern was quite a violent man, being physically abusive to his children.
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, 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. He was dismissed from Scoil Eoin Báiste on the orders of The Most Rev. Dr 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. The farm was located in the townland of Aughaboneill, just south of Foxfield and a short distance south-west of Fenagh. The farm overlooked Lough Rowan or Rowan Lough, usually known locally as Laura Lake.
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.
McGahern's six novels, drawing inspiration from personal life experience, detail the trials of developing a sense of self in mid-twentieth century Ireland.
The early novels: The Barracks and The Dark
His first published novel, The Barracks (1963), chronicles the life of the barracks' Garda sergeant's second wife, Elizabeth Reegan, who is in declining health due to cancer. The Barracks was adapted for the stage in 1969 by Hugh Leonard.
His second book, The Dark (1965), tracks the progression of a young boy as he moves through the education system in rural Ireland. The main character, young Mahoney, while maintaining his academic prowess, experiences a strained relationship with his father, old Mahoney – who beats him and the other children – as well as indecision about what to do with his life after secondary school. Young Mahoney's attitude towards his father evolves over the large timespan covered within the novel from fear and hatred towards greater acceptance.
Note: The Barracks and The Dark came from McGahern's re-writing of his first, unpublished, novel, The End or Beginning of Love.
Mid-career literature: The Leavetaking and The Pornographer
The next novel, The Leavetaking (1975), introduces the reader to Patrick Moran, a young schoolteacher in Dublin. The novel is set during his last day in the school. He will be formally fired that night for having married a divorced non-Catholic woman during a leave of absence year. The novel is divided into two parts: both of which are essentially flashbacks. Part 1 covers the teacher's childhood up to the moment of his mother's death. Like McGahern himself, Patrick had promised his mother that he would become a priest and, as he is unable or unwilling to do so, instead becomes a schoolteacher (often referred to as "the second priesthood" in mid-twentieth century Ireland). Part 2 flashes back to how he came to meet his wife, how exactly the church authorities fired him, and his ultimate dismissal by the Catholic Church authorities, the formal authority within the vast majority of primary schools on the island of Ireland at the time. The book is a close reflection on McGahern's own experience of being dismissed from his teaching post in the early 1960s for much the same reasons as Patrick Moran, as well as the scandal caused by his second book, The Dark, for its many sexual references.
The Pornographer (published in 1979) details the life of the novel's protagonist who lives in Dublin and writes pornography for a living. He begins a sexual relationship with a young woman called Josephine, and when Josephine subsequently becomes pregnant, the "pornographer" voices his contempt towards the birth of the baby, and indeed his relationship with the child's mother. As with McGahern's previous novel, this work treats the subject of death by cancer – the protagonist's aunt in this case is dying in hospital – as well as visits to rural Ireland.