Death of John McGahern - A great loss to Irish literature

THE death of John McGahern has robbed Irish literature of one of its outstanding talents.

Among the greatest writers of our time, it has been rightly said of him that his portrayal of the social fabric of Irish life, interweaving the contradictions of its grasping greed and its gentler qualities, was just as significant as the creativity of his writing.

Writing in sparse and understated English, he approached taboo subjects with unflinching courage at a time of censorship and in the face of an Irish regime that drove him into exile for a time but failed to grind him down, as he later returned to settle in his beloved Leitrim.