22 Facts About John McGahern

John McGahern's father, Sergeant Francis McGahern, was a native of Scrabby, a village on the shores of Lough Gowna in the west of County Cavan.

Sergeant Frank John 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 Siochana; she was working in the town as a primary school teacher at the time.

Sergeant John McGahern later served with the Garda Siochana 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.

John McGahern was quite a violent man, being physically abusive to his children.

John McGahern was offered a place at St Patrick's College of Education in Drumcondra where he trained to be a teacher.

John McGahern returned to third-level education in University College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1957.

John McGahern was dismissed from Scoil Eoin Baiste on the orders of The Most Rev Dr John Charles McQuaid, Archbishop of Dublin.

John McGahern divorced in 1969, and married Madeline Green in 1973.

John McGahern died from cancer in the Mater Hospital in Dublin on 30 March 2006, aged 71.

John McGahern is buried in St Patrick's Church, Aughawillan, alongside his mother.

John McGahern's first published novel, The Barracks, chronicles the life of the barracks' Garda sergeant's second wife, Elizabeth Reegan, who is in declining health due to cancer.

Note: The Barracks and The Dark came from John McGahern's re-writing of his first, unpublished, novel, The End or Beginning of Love.

John McGahern will be formally fired that night for having married a divorced non-Catholic woman during a leave of absence year.

John McGahern's final novel, That They May Face the Rising Sun, which was published in 2002, is a portrait of a year in the life of a rural lakeside community.

John McGahern said "the ordinary fascinates me" and "the ordinary is the most precious thing in life".

Several collections of short stories by John McGahern were published, as well as Love of the World, a collection of non-fiction essays.

John McGahern's work has been very influential in Ireland and elsewhere.

John McGahern's work has been translated into other languages, in particular French.

John McGahern was a member of the Irish Arts honorary organisation Aosdana and was appointed a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

John McGahern was visiting professor at Colgate University and the University of Notre Dame, University of Victoria, Durham University, UCD and NUI Galway.

John McGahern was a farmer in his native South Leitrim, although he liked to joke that it was the writing that kept the farm rather than the farming revenue allowing him to write.