The last chapter

Author Maeve Binchy will be remembered for her humanity and great sense of humour, says Declan Burke

WITH the death of Maeve Binchy at the age of 72, Ireland has lost one of its leading literary lights.

“I don’t think that Maeve was ever accorded the same kind of respect that some of the novelists who are considered more literary received,” says her colleague, Sheila O’Flanagan, “but I think her storytelling, certainly, set a benchmark for commercial fiction that is very high and rarely surpassed.”