Funferal

The passing of John McGahern

When I was in Ireland last year – it must have been in January, though it doesn’t seem that long ago – I caught a documentary on RTÉ focused on the life of John McGahern, the great Irish author. I was deeply struck not just by the quality of the documentary – a tribute to public service broadcasting – but by the complexity and depth of McGahern’s understanding of his work.
McGahern’s death was announced today. In a tribute Michael D. Higgins noted that For those of us who had the privilege to know him personally, one could not but be struck by the profound humanity with which he connected the integrity of the life and the integrity of the work- most movingly, in his most recent work Memoir.
May he rest in peace.