John McGahern (1934-2006)


Life
b. 12 Nov., Knockanroe [townland], nr. Ballinamore, Co Leitrim; brought up in Ballinamore, and later at Cootehall, Co. Roscommon, after the early death of his primary school-teacher mother from cancer, his father being station sergeant at the Garda Barracks there whose negative attitude towards his dying mother gave McGahern the subject of his second novel (The Barracks); ed. Presentation College [Secondary School], in Carrick-on-Shannon, where he briefly thought about becoming a priest; St. Patrick’s Training College, Drumcondra, 1952-54, and later at UCD, 1957; taught at St. John the Baptist’s National School [Scoil Eoin Báiste], (i.e., Belgrove School, Clontarf, Co. Dublin), 1955; first publ. in X, a lit. journal ed. by Patrick Swift and David Wright - Swift being a close associate of John Jordan since Synge St. CBS; composed an unpublished novel as “The End or Beginning of Love”, accepted by Faber but withdrawn by him, parts of which were later to be incorporated in The Dark;
 
wrote admiringly to Michael McLaverty, and continued to correspond with him, from Jan. 1959; read his story “Coming into His Kingdom” in Newman House, 1962; submitted the story the New Yorker, and suffered reject; published by Kilkenny Magazine; published “A Barrack Evening”, an extract, in Dolmen Miscellany of Irish Writing (Autumn 1962),winning the first AE Memorial Award, 1962, and afterwards issued the completed novel as The Barracks (Faber 1963), concerned the approaching death of Elizabeth Regan, a police sergeant’s wife, from cancer, and by means of which McGahern acquired reputation for uncompromising realism; won Macaulay Fellowship and spent a year living outside Ireland, 1964; issued The Dark (1965), dealing with the Co. Roscommon childhood of a scholarship boy in the power of an abusive father Mahoney and a series of tyrannical and abusive priests; banned by the Censorship Board; dismissed from his teaching post without explanation though actually on account of his relationship with Annikki Laaksi, a Finnish theatrical producer and divorcée (circumstances partially portrayed in The Leavetaking) and supposedly at behest of Archbishop J. C. McQuaid (Dublin diocese), 1965; settled in London and m. Laaksi, 1965;
 
ceased teaching, 1966; worked as a part-time teacher but also on building sites, 1965-68; appt. Research Fellow at University of Reading, 1968; travelled to teach as visiting professor at Colgate U., NY, 1969; issued Nightlines (1970), stories; divorced Laaksi and m. Madeline Green, 1973; returned to small farm at Foxfield, in Fenagh, nr. Mohill, Co. Leitrim, 1974; appt. writer-in-residence, Durham University, and afterwards at Newcastle University; Victoria (Canada) and University College Dublin; issued The Leavetaking (1974), concerning Patrick Moran’s disillusion with Irish school-teaching and his departure for London, with an American, Isobel, with whom he shares comparable parental relationships, respectively with the mother and the father; issued Getting Through (1978), stories; issued The Pornographer (1979), a novel, later revised; winner Irish-American Foundation Award (1985); awarded Chevalier des Arts et Lettres, 1989; honorary DLitt from Trinity College, Dublin, 1991; issued High Ground (1985), stories;
 
issued Amongst Women (1990), a ‘small-house novel’ - acc. Antoinette Quinn - concerning Moran, an independence-fighter, living out his last days with his second wife and three daughters being the story of the later family life of a politically-disappointed former Republican soldier, dominating his children in his small-farm home on the Roscommon-Leitrim border - later filmed; winner of Irish Times/Aer Lingus Literature Award (Fiction), and short-listed for the Booker Prize, 1990, writer in residence at TCD, 1988-89; issued wrote The Power of Darkness (1991), a play; issued Collected Stories (1992), readings from which were transmitted on BBC3 (19 & 20 Oct. 1992); an RTÉ profile documentary appeared in 1990; Hon. Dlitt., TCD, 1991; sometime winner of PEN award for life-time achievement; appointed to staff of Dublin City University (DCU), in 2001; That They May Face the Rising Sun (2001), shortlisted for IMPAC Award; subject of documentary by Pat Collins (RTE, Jan. 2005); issued Memoir (April 2005), centrally featuring his father the Garda sargeant; d., following long illness from cancer, 30 April 2006; subject of tribute by President Mary McAleese commending his ‘immense contribution to our self-understanding as a people’);
 
New and Selected Short Stories (2006), is a final selection by the author; his extensive papers are held at the James Hardiman Library, NUI Galway; since 1971 all his work has been translated into French; essays edited posthumously by Stanley van der Ziel as Love of the World (2010); an annual John McGahern International Seminar was established at NUI Galway in conjunction with the Leitrim County Council in 2007; a John McGahern Yearbook was first published in 2008; his letters to Michael McLaverty are preserved in the collection in the Linenhall Library, Belfast. DIW DIL FDA OCIL

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Works
Novels
  • The Barracks (London: Faber & Faber 1963), 232pp. [ded. ‘To / James Swift’; Do., [1st pb. edn.] (London: Faber & Faber 1983; rep. 1986 & edns. to 2009), 232pp.; Do. (NY: Macmillan 1964), and Do. [another edn.] (London: Panther 1966);
  • The Dark (London: Faber 1965; rep. 1983 & edns. to 2008), and Do. (NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1966; London: Panther 1967) [banned in Ireland, June 1965];
  • The Leavetaking (London: Faber 1974; [rev. edn. with author’s preface] 1984., & edns. to 2009); Do. (Boston: Little, Brown 1975), and Do. (Dublin: Poolbeg 1980);
  • The Pornographer (London: Faber; NY: Harper & Row 1979), and Do. (London: Quartet 1980) [reprinted at author’s wishes];
  • Amongst Women (London: Faber; NY: Harper & Row 1990);
  • That They May Face the Rising Sun (London: Faber & Faber 2001. 2003), 297pp., and Do. [in USA] as By the Lake (NY: Knopf 2002), 335pp.
Short Fiction
  • Nightlines (London: Faber 1970), Do. (Boston: Little, Brown 1971; London: Panther 1973; Granada 1982) [incl. ‘Coming Into His Kingdom’; ‘Peaches’ (both set in Fascist Spain); ‘The Beginning of an Idea’; My Love, My Umbrella’; ‘A Ballad’, et al.;
  • Getting Through (London: Faber 1978), Do. (London: Quartet; Dublin: Poolbeg 1979; NY: Harper & Row 1980); High Ground (London: Faber 1985), Do. (NY: Viking 1987);
  • ‘‘‘Why We’re Here’: A Story’’, in Cork Review [‘Seán O Faoláin Special Issue’ , ed. Sean Dunne] (1991), pp.49-50;
  • The Collected Stories (London: Faber & Faber 1992), and Do. (NY: Knopf 1993);
  • Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected Stories (London: Faber & Faber 2006), 408pp.;
  • The Collected Stories of John McGahern (London: Faber & Faber 1992), 408pp. [details]
See also “Johnny”, in Granta, 75 (Autumn 2001), q.pp. [online].
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Drama
  • Sinclair (Radio 1971); Swallows (TV 1975);
  • The Rockingham Shoot (BBC-TV, Sept. 1987);
  • The Power of Darkness (Abbey 1991; adapted for Radio ?BBC3 2006).
Essays
  • Love of the World: Essays, ed. Stanley van der Ziel, with an introduction by Declan Kiberd (London: Faber & Faber 2009), xlvii, 448pp. [incls. ‘Rural Ireland’s Passing’; ‘The Church and Its Spire’; ‘The Solitary Reader’; ‘A Literature without Qualities’, &c.].
Autobiography
  • Memoir (London: Faber & Faber 2005), [4], 272, [8]pp.., and Do. [in USA] as All Will Be Well: A Memoir (NY: Knopf 2005), 289pp.
Correspondence
  • John Killen, ed., Dear Mr McLaverty: The Literary Correspondence of John McGahern and Michael McLaverty (Linen Hall Library 2006), 58pp.
Articles
  • ‘The Image: Prologue to a Reading at the Rockerfeller University’, in Honest Ulsterman, 8 (1968), p.10;
  • ‘An tOileánach: The Islandman’ in Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 13, 1 (June 1987), pp.7-16;
  • review of Tomás Ó Crohan, An t-Oiléanach, in The Irish Review (Spring 1989), pp.55-62;
  • ‘Dubliners,’ in Joyce, The Artist and the Labyrinth, ed. Augustine Martin (London: Ryan Publ. 1990), p.63ff.;
  • ‘Island Days: On An tOileánach, Tomás O’ Crohan’s Poetic Portrait of Life on the Blaskets’, in The Irish Times (2 Nov. 1991), p.8;
  • ‘A Poet Who Worked in Prose’ [obit. tribute to Michael McLaverty], in Irish Independent (21 March 1992) [q.p.];
  • review of Maurice Goldring, Pleasant the Scholar’s Life, in Irish Times (23 July 1994), ‘Weekend’ [q.p.];
  • review of Jeffrey Meyers, Edmund Wilson: A Biography, in Irish Times (23 Sept. 1995), p.8;
  • ‘In pursuit of a single flame’, review of Ernie O’Malley, The Singing Flame, in Irish Times, (17 Feb. 1996), ‘Weekend’, p.8 [extract];
  • ‘Reading and Writing’, in Irish Writers and Their Creative Process, ed. Jacqueline Genet, et al. (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe), pp.103-09;
  • ‘The Sky Above Us’, in Ireland of the Welcomes [‘New Irish Writing’, spec. iss. ed. Derek Mahon]; (Sept.-Oct. 1996), pp.39-42 [‘We live in the poor heart of the island of Ireland’];
  • review of Terence Brown, The Life of W. B. Yeats: A Critical Biography, in Irish Times (27 Nov. 1999), Weekend [q.p.];
  • ‘Whatever you say, say nothing: Ireland 1950-1959’, in The Irish Times (30 Dec. 1999), “Eye on the 20th Century” [column];
  • review-article on Ernie O’Malley, On Another Man’s Wounds, ed. & annot., Cormac K. H. O’Malley [enl. rep. edn.], in The Irish Times (8 June 2002), ‘Weekend’, p.10 [extract].
Also contrib. to Gabriel Doherty & Dermot Keogh, eds., De Valera’s Irelands (Cork: Mercier Press 2003), q.pp..

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Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 17, 1 [“Special John McGahern Issue”, ed. Denis Sampson] (July 1991) incls. contributions by McGahern: ‘The Image’ [12; extract]; “The Solitary Reader” [19-24]; “The Creamery Manager” [story; 25-30];“Dubliners” [31-37].

The Hardiman Library at University College, Galway (NUI) holds The McGahern’s Papers [online]

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Bibliographical details
The Collected Stories (London: Faber & Faber 1992), 408pp. CONTENTS: Wheels [3]; Why We’re Here [12]; Coming into his Kingdom [16]; Christmas [23]; Hearts of Oak and Bellies of Brass [29]; Strandhill, the Sea [39]; The Key [45]; Korea [54]; Lavin [59]; My Love, My Umbrella [65]; Peaches [75]; The Recruiting Officer [100]; The Beginning of an Idea [112]; A Slip-up [127]; All Sorts of Impossible Things [133]; Faith, Hope and Charity [146]; The Stoat [152 Doorways [158]; The Wine Breath [178]; Along the Edges [188]; Swallows [200]; Cold Watch [211]; Parachutes [226]; A Ballad [239]; Oldfashioned [249]; Like All Other Men [272]; Eddie Mac [281]; Crossing the Line [295]; High Ground [306]; Sierra Leone [316]; The Conversion of William Kirkwood [331]; Bank Holiday [350]; The Creamery Manager [366]; The Country Funeral [374].

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Criticism
There is a John McGahern Yearbook, ed. John Kenny (2008- )
Monographs
  • Denis Sampson, Outstaring Nature’s Eye: The Fiction of John McGahern (Washington: CUA Press; Dublin: Lilliput 1993), xvii, 267pp., ill. [port.]
  • Lori Rogers, Feminine Nation: Performance, Gender and Resistance in the Works of John McGahern and Neil Jordan (Maryland: Univ. Press of America 1998).
  • James Whyte, History, Myth and Ritual in the Fiction of John McGahern (NY: Edwin Mellon Press 2002), 271pp. [interview, pp.227-35].
  • Eamon Maher, John McGahern: From the Local to the Universal [Contemporary Irish Writers Ser.] (Dublin: Liffey Press 2003), 200pp. [incorporating extensive interview material].
  • David Malcolm, Understanding John McGahern (Univ. of S. Carolina Press 2007), xiv, 163pp.
  • Eamon Maher, ‘The Church and Its Spire’: John McGahern and the Catholic Question, with a foreword by Fintan O’Toole (Dublin: Columbia Press 2011), 215pp.
  • Denis Sampson, Young John McGahern: Becoming a Novelist (Oxford UP 2012), 194pp.
Special Issues
  • Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, “Special John McGahern Issue” [ed. Denis Sampson], 17, 1 (July 1991) [see contents].
  • Études Irlandaises [Numéro Spécial: ‘Études sur The Barracks de John McGahern’, ed. Claude Fierobe] (Oct. 1994) [see contents].
  • Irish University Review, “John McGahern Special Issue”, 35, 1 (Spring/Summer 2005) [see contents.]

See also James M. Cahalan, Double Visions: Women and Men in Modern and Contemporary Irish Fiction (Syracuse: Syracuse UP 1999), 234pp.; Peter Guy, ‘As Mirrors are Lonely’: A Lacanian Reading of Three Irish Novelists [PhD Thesis] (Nat. Centre for Franco-Irish Studies / ITT Dublin 2009) [Broderick, McGahern, Moore - available online at Wiziq online - accessed 25.04.2011].

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Articles
  • Robert F. Cayton’s [review of The Dark], in Library Journal, 91 (1966), p.2,522.
  • Owen Sheehy Skeffington, ‘The McGahern Affair’, in Censorship, 2 (Spring 1966), pp.27-30.
  • Vivian Mercier, ‘Growing Up in Ireland’, in New York Times Book Review (6 March 1966), p.50.
  • Bruce Cook, ‘Irish Censorship: The Case of John McGahern’, in Catholic World, 206 (1967), pp.176-69 [extra].
  • Michael Foley, ‘The Novels of John McGahern’, in The Honest Ulsterman, 5 (Sept. 1968), pp.34-37.
  • John Cronin, ‘The Dark is Not Light Enough: The Fiction of John McGahern’ , in Studies: An Irish Quarterly, 58 (Winter 1969), pp.427-32 [available at JSTOR - online].
  • Michael Foley, ‘The Novels of John McGahern’, in Honest Ulsterman, 8 (September 1968), pp.34-37.
  • Roger Garfitt, ‘Constants in Contemporary Irish Fiction’, in Two Decades of Irish Writing, ed. Douglas Dunn (Cheadle: Carcanet Press 1975; Penn.: Dufour 1975), pp.207-41.
  • Peter Straub, ‘John McGahern: The Leavetaking’, in New Statesman (10 Jan. 1975), p.50.
  • Maurice Harmon, ‘The Leavetaking’, in Irish University Review, 5 (Spring 1975), pp.322-25.
  • Julian Jebb, ‘The Call of the Deep’, in Times Literary Supplement (10 Jan. 1975), p.29.
  • Maurice Harmon, ‘Generations Apart: 1925-1975’, in The Irish Novel in Our Time, ed. Patrick Rafroidi & Harmon [Cahiers irlandaises, 4-5] (l’Université de Lille 1976), pp.49-65 [see extract].
  • Henri-D. Paratte, ‘Conflicts in a Changing World: John McGahern’, in The Irish Novel in Our Time, Patrick Rafroidi & Maurice Harmon [Cahiers irlandaises, 4-5] (l’Université de Lille 1976), pp.311-27.
  • Denis Sampson, ‘A Note on John McGahern’, in Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 2, 2 (1976), pp.61-65.
  • Francis C. Molloy, ‘The Novels of John McGahern’, in Critique 19, 1 (1977), pp.5-27.
  • Paul Devine, ‘Style and Structure in John McGahern’s The Dark’, in Critique, 21, 1 (1979), pp.49-58
  • Terence Brown, ‘John McGahern’s Nightlines: Tone, Technique and Symbolism’, in The Irish Short Story , ed. Patrick Rafroidi & Brown (Gerrards Cross: Smythe; Atlantic Highlands/NJ.: Humanities Press 1979), pp.289-301.
  • Paul Devine, ‘Style and Structure in John McGahern’s The Dark’, in Critique, 21, 1 (1979), pp.49-58.
  • Douglas Sealy, ‘A Moral Tale’, Hibernia (25 Oct. 1979), p.13.
  • Alan Warner, ‘John McGahern’, in A Guide to Anglo-Irish Literature (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1981), pp.245-52.
  • Michael J. Toolan, ‘John McGahern: The Historian and the Pornographer’, in Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 7, 2 (1981), pp.39-55.
  • Grattan Freyer, ‘Change Naturally: The Fiction of O’Flaherty, O’Faoláin, McGahern’, in Éire-Ireland, 18, 1 (Spring 1983), pp.138-44.
  • Eileen Kennedy, ‘The Novels of John McGahern: The Road Away Becomes the Road Back’, in James D. Brophy & Raymond J. Porter, eds., Contemporary Irish Writing (Library of Irish Studies, II] (Boston: Iona College Press 1983), pp.115-26.
  • Shaun O’Connell, ‘Door into Light, John McGahern’s Ireland’, iin Massachusetts Review, 25 (Summer 1984), pp.255-68.
  • Fred Johnston, ‘John McGahern at Fifty’, in The Irish Times (15 August 1984), p.10.
  • Karlheinz Schwartz, ‘John McGahern’s Point of View’, in Eire-Ireland, 19, 3 (Fall 1984), pp.92-110.
  • Louise Martin, ‘The Conflicts Between Self and Society in the Works of John McGahern’ [MA] (Université de Bretagne Occid. 1984).
  • Terence de Vere White, ‘The Conscious Artist’, in The Irish Times (14 Sept. 1985), p.11.
  • John Cronin, review of High Ground, in Studies: An Irish Quarterly, 75 (1985) pp.219-21.
  • Tracey Sennett, ‘Rhythm, Images, and the Fiction of John McGahern’, in An Gael, 3, 2 (Winter 1986), pp.11-13.
  • Joel Connaroe, ‘Strong Women, Dreamy Men’ [review of High Ground], in New York Times Book Review (9 Sept. 1987), p.44.
  • Suzanne J. Fournier, ‘Structure and Theme in John McGahern’s The Pornographer ’, in Éire-Ireland, 22, 1 (Spring 1987), pp.139-49;
  • Michael Gorman, ‘Unflinching Fidelity: The Work of John McGahern’, in Krino, 4 (Autumn 1987), pp.8-15.
  • Klaus Lubbers, ‘Balcony of Europe: The Trend Towards Internationalisation in Recent Irish Fiction’, in Literary Interrelations: Ireland, England and the World, Vol. III [“National Images and Stereotypes”], ed. Wolfgang Zach & Heinz Kosok [IASI Conference Papers] (Tübingen: Gunter Narr 1987), pp.235-44.
  • John Cronin, ‘Art and The Failure of Love: The Fiction of John McGahern’, in Studies: An Irish Quarterly, 77 (Summer 1988), pp.201-17.
  • Richard Lloyd, ‘Memory Becoming Imagination, Novels of J. McGahern’, in Journal of Irish Literature, 18, 3 (Sept. 1989).
  • Antoinette Quinn, ‘Varieties of Disenchantment: Narrative Techniques in John McGahern’s Short Stories’, in Journal of the Short Story in English, 13 (Autumn 1989), pp.77-89.
  • John Banville, ‘To Have and To Hate’ [review of Amongst Women], in Observer (6 Oct. October 1990) [q.pp.];
  • James Simmons [review of Amongst Women], in Linen Hall Review (Summer 1990), p.32 [see extract].
  • Jürgen Kamm, ‘John McGahern’, in Contemporary Irish Novelists, ed. Rüdiger Imhof [Studies in English and Comparative Literature, ed. Michael Kenneally & Wolfgang Zach] (Tübingen: Gunter Narr 1990), pp.175-91 [see extract].
  • Gerry Smyth, ‘Amongst Women (1990) by John McGahern’ [chap. sect.], in The Novel and the Nation: Studies in the New Irish Fiction (London: Pluto, 1997), pp.171-73.
  • Julia Carlson, intro. & ed., Banned in Ireland, Censorship & the Irish Writer (Georgia UP; London: Routledge 1990): ‘John McGahern’, pp.55-67.
  • Sophia Hillan King, ‘“Quiet Desperation”: Variations on a Theme in the Writing of Daniel Corkery, Michael McLaverty, and John McGahern’, in Aspects of Irish Studies, ed. Myrtle Hill & Sarah Barber (Belfast Institute of Irish Studies 1990) [q.p.]
  • Terence Brown, ‘Redeeming the Time: The Novels of John McGahern and John Banville’, in The British and Irish Novel since 1960, ed. James Acheson (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1991), pp.159-73.
  • Denis Sampson, review of The Power of Darkness [Abbey 1991] ([q. source) [see extract];
  • Julian Gitzen, ‘Wheels along the Shannon: The Fiction of John McGahern’, in Journal of Irish Literature, 20, 3 ([Delaware UP] Sept. 1991), p.36-49.
  • John Cronin, ‘John Mc Gahern’s Amongst Women: Retrenchment and Renewal’, in Irish University Review, 22, 1 (Spring/Summer 1991), pp.168-76.
  • Denis Sampson, review of The Collected Stories, in Irish Literary Supplement (Fall 1993) [q.p.; see extract];
  • John Banville, ‘Big News from Small Worlds’, review of The Collected Stories of John McGahern, in New York Review of Books (8 April 1993) [available online].
  • José Lanters, ‘“It Fills Many a Vacuum”: Food and Hunger in the Early Novels of John McGahern’, in Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 20, 1 (1994), pp.30-40.
  • Études Irlandaises [Numéro Spécial: ‘Études sur The Barracks de John McGahern’, ed. Claude Fierobe] (October 1994) [see contents]
  • Eamon Grennan, ‘John McGahern: Vision and Revisionism’, in Colby Quarterly, 31 (March 1995), pp.30-39.
  • Gerry Smyth, The Novel and the Nation: Studies in the New Irish Fiction (London: Pluto Press 1997) [on Amongst Women] pp.171-73 [see extract].
  • Siobhán Holland, ‘A Case for Matrifocality in John McGahern’s Amongst Women’, in Irish Encounters: Poetry, Politics and Prose, ed. Alan Marshall & Neil Sammells (Bath: Sulis Press 1998) [Chap. 12; qpp.].
  • Rosa González, interview with John McGahern, in Ireland in Writing: Interviews with Writers and Academics, ed. Jacqueline Hurtley, et al. (Amsterdam & Atlanta: Rodopi 1998), pp.39-50 see extract].
  • Fiona MacArthur & Carolina P. Amador Morena, ‘Observations on Characters’ Use of Conventional Metaphors in John McGahern’s Amongst Women’, in Anuario de Estudios Filológicos, 21 (1998), pp.179-91 [available as pdf. online].
  • Eamonn Wall, ‘The Living Stream: John McGahern’s Amongst Women and Irish Writing in the 1990s’, in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review [“Across the Pond - Reflections on Irish Writing / A View from the Irish States”: Special Issue, guest ed. Deborah McWilliams], 88, 351 (Autumn 1999), pp.305-14.
  • Brian Liddy, ‘State and Church: Darkness in the Fiction of John McGahern’, in New Hibernian Review, 3, 2 (Summer 1999), pp.106-21.
  • Siobhán Holland, ‘The Question of Gendered Voice in some Contemporary Irish Novels by Brian Moore and John McGahern’ [Ph.D. Thesis] (University of Leeds / Sept. 1997).
  • Liliane Louvel, ‘The Writer’s Field: “Patrols of the Imagination”: John McGahern’s Short Stories’, in Journal of the Short Story in English , 34 ( Angers: Presses Universitaires d’Angers Spring 2000), pp.65-88.
  • Dominique Dubois, ‘Incommunicability and Alienation in John McGahern’s “My Love, My Umbrella”: An Analysis of the Discursive Strategies’, in Journal of the Short Story in English, 34 (Spring 2000), pp.53-64.
  • Eamon Maher, ‘Catholicism and National Identity in the Works of John McGahern’ [interview with McGahern at Tallaght Institute of Technology, 8 Dec. 2000], in Studies: An Irish Quarterly, (Spring [2001]), pp.70-83; [see extract].
  • Siobhan Holland, ‘Re-Citing the Rosary: Women, Catholicism and Agency in Brian Moore’s Cold Heaven and John McGahern’s Amongst Women’, in Contemporary Irish Fiction: Themes, Tropes, Theories, ed. Liam Harte & Michael Parker (Basingstoke: Macmillan 2001), pp.56-78.
  • Eamon Maher, ‘Disintegration and Despair in the Early Fiction of John McGahern’, in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 90, 357 (Spring 2001), pp.84-91 [available at JSTOR - online].
  • Paul Clements, ‘John McGahern’, in Book Collector (July 2001) [.q.p.].
  • Nicholas Wroe, ‘John McGahern: Ireland’s rural elegist’ [“Profile”], in The Guardian (Sat. 5 Jan. 2002) [see extract].
  • Desmond Traynor, reviewing John McGahern, That They May Face the Rising Sun (2002), in Books Ireland (Feb. 2002) [see extract].
  • Robert MacFarlane, review of That they May Face the Rising Sun, Times Literary Supplement, 18 Jan. [2002], p.28 [see extract].
  • Hermione Lee, ‘Everything under the Sun’, review of That They May Face the Rising Sun, in The Observer (6 Jan. 2002) [see extract - and see TLS article, infra].
  • Desmond Traynor, review of John McGahern, That They May Face the Rising Sun (2002), in Books Ireland (Feb. 2002), p.23 [see extract].
  • Seamus Deane, ‘A New Dawn’, review of That They May Face the Rising Sun, in The Guardian (12 Jan. 2002) [available online - or see extract].
  • Patrick Crotty, “‘All Toppers’: Children in the Fiction of John McGahern’, in Irish Fiction since the 1960s: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Elmer Kennedy-Andrews (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2002) [Chap. 13; prev. in Irish University Review, 35, 1, 2005, pp.121-35.]
  • Eamon Maher & Grace Neville, eds., France-Ireland - Anatomy of a Relationship: Studies in History, Literature and Politics, preface J. J. Lee (Frankfurt am Main/ Oxford: Peter Lang [2004]), 372pp., ill. [incls. essay by Maher on McGahern].
  • Declan Kiberd, ‘Portraits of a paradise lost’, [review of Memoir], in The Irish Times (3 Sept. 2005), Weekend [see extract].
  • Robert Greacen, review of McGahern’s Memoir, in Books Ireland (Oct. 2005) [extract].
  • Eamon Grennan, ‘“Only What Happens”: Mulling over McGahern’, in Irish University Review (Spring/Summer 2005), p.16 [speaks of ‘stylistic existentialism’].
  • Andrew Motion, ‘Figure in a landscape’, review of Memoir, in The Guardian (Sat., 17 Sept. 2005) [see extract].
  • Stanley van der Ziel, ‘Fionn and Oisín in the Land of Wink and Nod: Heroes, History, and the Creative Imagination in John McGahern’s Amongst Women’, in The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 31, 2 (Fall 2005), pp.10-18 [available at JSTOR - online];
  • Richard Pine, ‘John McGahern - Ireland’s leading novelist, whose work reflected his country’s new self-confidence’ in The Guardian (31 March 2006) [see extract];
  • John Kenny, ‘A last bow - now applaud’, review of Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected Stories by John McGahern, in The Irish Times (2 Dec. 2006) [see extract];
  • Denis Sampson, ‘The “Sacred Weather” of County Leitrim: John McGahern’s Memoir’, in The Irish Review, 36, 1 (Winter 2007), pp.120-28.
  • Stephen Regan, ‘Seamus Deane’s Reading in the Dark, John Walsh’s The Falling Angels and John McGahern’s Memoir’, in Irish Literature Since 1990: Diverse Voices, ed. Scott Brewster & Michael Parker (Manchester UP 2009) [Chap. 11].
  • Hermione Lee, ‘A Sly Twinkle’, review-article on Love of the World: Essays, in Times Literary Supplement (4 Dec. 2009), pp.3-5 [see extract].
Bibliography
  • Stanley van der Ziel, ‘John McGahern: An Annotated Bibliography’, in Irish University Review [Special Issue] (Spring/Summer 2005), pp.175-202 - available at JSTOR Ireland online; also at FindArticles [online].
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Interviews
  • Audrey L. Lynch, ‘An Interview with John McGahern’, in Books Ireland ([q. iss.] 1984);
  • Patrick Gordon, Interview with John McGahern’, in Scrivener: A Literary Magazine [Montreal], 5, 2 (Summer 1984), pp.25-26;
  • Eileen Kennedy, ‘Q & A with John McGahern’ [interview], in Irish Literary Supplement, 3 (Spring 1984), p.40;
  • Ciaran Carty, ‘Out of the Dark: An Interview with John McGahern’, in The Sunday Tribune (6 Sept. 1987) [q.p.]
  • Cathy Herbert, ‘Window on the World’ [interview with John McGahern), in Magill (Oct. 1987), pp.56-62;
  • Rosa Gonzalez, ‘John McGahern interviewed’, in Ireland in Writing: Interviews with Writers and Academics (Amsterdam & and Atlanta: Rodopi 1988), p.43;
  • Joe Jackson, ‘Tales from the Darkside’ [interview], in Hot Press, 15, 22 (14 Nov. 1991), p.18-20 [see extract];
  • Denis Sampson, ‘A Conversation with John McGahern’, in Canadian Journal of Irish Studies , 17 (July 1991), pp.13-18;
  • Liliane Louvel, Gilles Ménégaldo & Claudine Verley, ‘Entretien avec John McGahern’, in La Licorne (Poitiers: UFR Langues Littératures (17 Nov. 1994), pp.19-32;
  • Rosa González, ‘An Interview with John McGahern’, in European Messenger, 4, 1 (Spring 1995), pp.17-23 [also in Bells, 6, Barcelona 1995, pp.173-81]
  • Belinda McKeon, ‘Make of it What you Will’ [interview with John McGahern], in Trinity News (April 2000) [see extract]
  • Mike Murphy, ‘John McGahern’ [interview with John McGahern], in Cliodhna Ní Anluain, ed., Reading the Future: Irish Writers in Conversation with Mike Murphy ( Dublin: Lilliput 2001) [q.pp.];
  • James Whyte, [interview], in History, Myth and Ritual in the Fiction of John McGahern (NY: Edwin Mellon Press 2002), pp.227-35
  • Robert McCrum, ‘The Whole World in a Community’ [interview with John McGahern], in The Observer (6 Jan. 2002) [see extract]
  • Nicholas Wroe, ‘John McGahern: Ireland’s rural elegist’ - “Profile” [interview-article], in The Guardian (Sat. 5 Jan. 2002) [see extract]
  • Eamon Maher & Declan Kiberd, ‘John McGahern: Writer, Stylist, Seeker of a Lost World’ [tapescript of a conversation between Eamon Maher and Declan Kiberd], in Doctrine and Life , 52, 2 (February 2002), pp.82-97 [see extract]
  • Shirley Kelly, ‘The writing Keeps the Cattle in High Style’ [interview-article], in Books Ireland (Feb. 2002), p.5-6 [seee extract]
  • James Whyte, [interview with John McGahern], in History, Myth, and Ritual in the Fiction of John McGahern: Strategies of Transcendence (NY: Edwin Mellen Press 2002), pp.227-35;
  • Robert McCrum, ‘The Whole World in a Community’ [interview with John McGahern], in The Guardian (6 Jan. 2002).
 

See also interview material in Eamon Maher, John McGahern: From the Local to the Universal [Contemporary Irish Writers Ser.] (Dublin: Liffey Press 2003).

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Journals - Special Issues

Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 17, 1 [‘Special John McGahern Issue’, ed. Denis Sampson] (July 1991). CONTENTS: Denis Sampson, ‘Introducing John McGahern’ [1]; McGahern, ‘The Image’ [12; see extract]; Sampson, ‘A Conversation with John McGahern’ [13]; McGahern, ‘The Solitary Reader’ [19]; McGahern, “The Creamery Manager” [story; 25]; McGahern, “Dubliners” [31-37]; Marianne (Koenig) Mays, ‘“Ravished and Exasperated”: The Evolution of John McGahern’s Plain Style’ [38]; Paolo Vivante, ‘McGahern and the Homeric Moment’ [53]; Sampson, ‘“The Lost Image”: Some Notes on McGahern and Proust’ [57]; Terence Killeen, ‘Versions of Exile: A Reading of The Leavetaking’ [69]; Antoinette Quinn, ‘A Prayer for My Daughter: Patriarchy in Amongst Women’ [79]; ‘John McGahern: Biographical Outline’ [91]; Sampson, ‘John McGahern: A Preliminary Checklist’ [93-101].

 

Études Irlandaises [Numéro Spécial, ‘Études sur The Barracks de John McGahern’, ed. Claude Fierobe] (October 1994). CONTENTS: Martine Pelletier, ‘Alienation individuelle et crise identitaire dans The Barracks’ [15]; Sylvie Mikowski, ‘L’Expérience fictive du temps dans The Barracks’ [27]; Pascale Amiot, ‘L’Enfermement dans The Barracks’ [45]; Bertrand Cardin, ‘L’Incommunicabilité dans The Barracks’ [ 65]; Yvon Tosser, ‘Répetition et différence, l’invention du quotidien dans The Barracks’ [95]; John Cronin, ‘“The Frightful Mill of Love”: John McGahern’s The Barracks’ [107]; Ciaran Ross, ‘Some Painful Thoughts about The Barracks’ [119]; David Coad, ‘Religious References in The Barracks’ [131]; Max Duperray, ‘La Pesanteur et la grâce ou la passion d’Elizabeth dans The Barracks’ [139]; Riana O’Dwyer, ‘Gender Roles in The Barracks’ [147-164].

 

Irish University Review, “John McGahern Special Issue”] 35, 1 (Spring/Summer 2005). CONTENTS: John Brannigan, Introduction: ‘The “Whole World’ of John McGahern’ [vii-x]; John McGahern, “What Is My Language?’ [1]; Eamon Grennan, “Only What Happens”: Mulling over McGahern’ [13]; Anne Goarzin, ‘“A Crack in the Concrete”: Objects in the Works of John McGahern’ [28]; Patrick Crotty, ‘“All Toppers”: Children in the Fiction of John McGahern’ [42]; Eamon Maher, ‘The Irish Novel in Crisis? The Example of John McGahern’ [58]; Belinda McKeon, ‘“Robins Feeding with the Sparrows”: The Protestant “Big House” in the Fiction of John McGahern’ [72]; Grace Tighe Ledwidge, ‘Death in Marriage: The Tragedy of Elizabeth Reegan in The Barracks’ [90]; Stanley van der Ziel, “All This Talk and Struggle”: John McGahern’s The Dark’ [104]; Robert F. Garratt, ‘John McGahern’s Amonst Women: Representation, Memory, and Trauma’ [121]; Denis Sampson, ‘“Open to the World”: A Reading of John McGahern’s That They May Face the Rising Sun’ [136]; Eamonn Hughes, ‘“All That Surrounds Our Life”: Time, Sex, and Death in That They May Face the Rising Sun’ [147]; Declan Kiberd, Fallen Nobility: The World of John McGahern’ [164]; Stanley van der Ziel, ‘John McGahern: An Annotated Bibliography’ [175-202], Index. [The issu is available at JSTOR Ireland - online; accessed 23.-03.2011.]

 
La Licorne [“Numéro Spécial John McGahern”], ed. Jean Brihault & Liliane Louvel (Poitiers: UFR Langues Littératures 1995).
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Commentary
See separate file, infra.

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Quotations
See separate file, infra.

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References
Peter Fallon & Seán Golden, ed., Soft Day: A Miscellany of Contemporary Irish Writing (Notre Dame/Wolfhound 1980), contains ‘Along the Edges’.

Grattan Freyer, Modern Irish Writing (Irish Humanities Centre 1979), contains ‘Korea’, from Nightlines (1970), with the introductory remark: ‘his vision is sombre in the extreme, reflecting a yearning despair and disillusion, a not uncommon mode in latter-day Ireland’.

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Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 3, selects extract from Nightlines and “Korea“; notes at 676 [ed. J. W. Foster, pp.938, 940, 942]; BIOG p.1135.

Hibernia Catalogue (No. 19), lists “The Creamery Manager”, in Krino, 4 (1987); The Power of Darkness: A Play (Faber 1991).

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Notes
The Barracks (1963), concerns the death from breast cancer of Elizabeth Regan, a police sergeant’s wife (who treats her ‘as if he had married a housekeeper’) and an ‘outsider’ in the village, where she refused to join the Legion of Mary and has a clandestine affair with the local doctor, Michael Halliday, who later descends into nihilism. The novel begins and ends with a ceremonial lighting of the lamp.

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The Dark (1965), set in his native Roscommon and dealing with the experience of the unnamed narrator as a boy educated by priests and exposed to clerical tyranny as well as to the brutality and frustration of his own father Mahoney, finally throwing up his scholarship to work as a lowly ESB clerk in Dublin; contains the first explicit scenes of masturbation in Irish fiction; uses alternate passages in the first and second persons; written during leave of absence; banned by the Censorship Board, 1965.

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The Leavetaking (1974): Patrick, and Irish school-teacher becomes involved in a painful love-affair and eventually marries Isobel, a wealthy American divorcee on moving to London after he has been dismissed from his post by Church authority; he experiences a loss of faith and puts in question his own earlier vocationalism, but resolves that the ‘small acts of love’ are themselves a sacrament to put beside those of his religion. The novel is told in the first person singular (and hence occasionally in the first person plural) and ends on a melancholy note, emphasising the fragility of relationships and the uncertainty of the future.

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Amongst Women (1990), concerning Michael Moran, an ex-guerrilla of the independence war, bewildered by the love and patience of his second wife and three daughters Rose, Sheila and Mona, in the last years of his life. Sheila has been thwarted in her desire to study medicine by her father’s opposition to the expense. Moran’s alienated elder son Luke works as a property developer in London. The sisters campaign to bring Luke back to Great Meadow, leading to an unsuccessful visit and a failure at reconcilement. The younger Michael, still a schoolboy with the Christian Brothers, is involved in an affair with Nell Monrahan, on a holiday from a working life in America, and escapes his father’s wrath by running away to England and later marries an Englishwoman, Ann Smith, whom Moran likes while Sheila marries Sean Flynn, a civil servant of whom Moran disapproves. At Moran’s funeral the local politicians walk away ‘sometimes turning their heads to look back to the crowd gathered around the grave in undisguised contempt’. The novel takes the pattern of the rosary, with its joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries, as a guiding structure, and to that extent the fate of Moran is a kind of crucifixion.

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The Power of Darkness (Faber 1991); a melodrama produced at the Abbey Theatre in 1991. Dram. persona, Peter King, a landowner, dying; Eileen, his second wife; Maggie, his 21 year-old daughter; Paul, a young workman, son of poor farmers in King’s debt for money; he is a ‘potent mixture of good looks, sexual egotism, weakness and vanity’; his mother, Baby, who regards Paul as ‘honey’ to women; her decent husband Oliver, deeply religious; an old soldier, Paddy. (From McGahern’s notes). Dedicatory thanks to Thomas Kilroy.

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Korea (1995), film dir. by Cathal Black(75 mins), based on McGahern’s story; Amongst Women was filmed under direction of Tom Cairns to screenplay by Adrian Hodges, in 4-part series originating with BBC N. Ireland and finished in co-production between RTE and the Film Board with Parallel films; shown on RTE from 19 May 1998, following discussion programme on McGahern with Declan Kiberd and others; Tom Doyle appears as Moran, with Anne Marie Duff, Geraldine O’Raw and Susan Lynch as his dgs.

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That They May Face the Rising Sun (2003) spans a year on the tiny Irish farm of Joe and Kate Ruttledge, incomers amid an ageing population whose best fled to England or educated themselves away from the fields; less characters than lenses through which to observe a cloistered demi-paradise; McGahern imagines a Book of Hours ornamented by the rural cycle - here are herons, otters, sloes ripening on the blackthorn and bream rolling in the lake; no sappy landscape, but almost complete in and of itself: “I’ve never, never moved from here and I know the whole world”, claims their neighbour Jamesie; during pleasurable shared silences time folds in on itself, and tales of the past seem more urgent than the present; even Jamesie’s clocks all chime at different times - when the clockmaker corrects their mechanisms, darkness presses on a community hovering between the world and the grave. (See DJ [book-notice], in The Guardian, 8 Feb. 2003.)

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First appearance: McGahern made his first appearance in print in the magazine X (1961-63), edited by Patrick Swift David Wright, a South African poet. (Variant dates 1959-62.)

‘In pursuit of a single flame’, review essay on ‘neglected classic of the War of Independence’ (Irish Times, 17 Feb.1996, ‘Weekend’, p.8), concerning Ernie O’Malley’s The Singing Flame; McGahern departs from a memory of teaching in Clontarf and finding that a nephew of O’Malley was using a manuscript notebook of his uncle’s for sums: ‘a symbol of the disregard shown the writer’ [as distinct from the soldier] at that time. [See under O’Malley, infra. (See also Hermione Lee's assessment of McGahern's attitude to O'Malley, in Lee, ‘A Sly Twinkle’, review-article on Love of the World: Essays, in Times Literary Supplement, 4 Dec. 2009, pp.3-5 [copy in RICORSO Library, attached].)

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Belgrove farewells: McGahern reports that a teachers' representative told him at the time of his dismissal from Belgrave School in Clontarf: ‘If it was just the auld book, we might have been able to do something for you, but with marrying this foreign woman you had turned yourself into a hopeless case.’ (Quoted in Hugh McFadden, review of Young John McGahern, by Denis Sampson, in Books Ireland, April 2012, p.59.)

Another Regan: The dying husband in Kathleen Joyce-Prendergast’s novel This is My Land (1944) is called Regan (cf. McGahern’s Barracks).

Kerry Ingredients Award: on receiving the E10,000 award at the Listowel Writers’ Week, Summer 2002, McGahern remarked: “Writing keeps the animals in great style”). (The Irish Times, 13 June 2002).

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Musical McGahern: “My Love, My Umbrella”, “Sierra Leone”, and “Gold Watch” were adapted in a libretto by James Conway and set to music by Kevin O’Connell, being performed at the Stamford Arts Centre, England, on 9 Oct. 1997. McGahern wrote of them, ‘These three stories were all written as love stories and can even be described as changing versions of the same story.’ (Folder 633, Special Collections, Hardiman Library, UCG/NUI.) Information of Ivor Faulkner, UU MA Diss., 2007.)

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Film tribute (I): Leitrim Cinemobile and the IFC jointly host a showing of McGahern’s works brought to film at Drumshanbo, Co Leitrim; screenings include Cathal Black’s award-winning adaptation of Korea (1996), and his debut short film Wheels (1976); also the 4-part BBC/RTÉ serial adaptation of Amongst Women (1998); The Rockingham Shoot (1987), tv-drama directed by Kieran Hickey, produced by Danny Boyle (dir. of Trainspotting); also Carlo Gebler’s TV scripts of The Lost Hour (from The Leavetaking) and The Key (from The Bomb Box) and two adaptations of Swallow. (See The Irish Times, 30 July 2005.)

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Film Tribute (II): A film tribute was paid to McGahern on Sunday, 1 April 2007, a year after his death, with a selection based on his work incl. Cathal Black’s Wheels (1976), Kieran Hickey’s The Rockingham Shoot (1987), from a screenplay by McGahern, and two shorts adapted by Carlo Gebler (The Lost Hour, dir. Sean Cotter, 1982) and The Key, dir. Tony Barry, 1983) were screened.

Hardiman Collection (UCG): 32 boxes of materials, chiefly drafts of novels and related contents, produced c.1958-2004. The initial corpus was donated to the University by John McGahern at an official ceremony on 6 Oct. 2003 and further material added by Madeline in September 2006 [online].

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