John McGahern

The early novels: The Barracks and The Dark

His first published novel, The Barracks (1963), chronicles the life of the barracks' Garda sergeant's second wife, Elizabeth Reegan, who is in declining health due to cancer. The Barracks was adapted for the stage in 1969 by Hugh Leonard.^[23]

His second book, The Dark (1965), tracks the progression of a young boy as he moves through the education system in rural Ireland. The main character, young Mahoney, while maintaining his academic prowess, experiences a strained relationship with his father, old Mahoney – who beats him and the other children – as well as indecision about what to do with his life after secondary school. Young Mahoney's attitude towards his father evolves over the large timespan covered within the novel from fear and hatred towards greater acceptance.

Note: The Barracks and The Dark came from McGahern's re-writing of his first, unpublished, novel, The End or Beginning of Love.^[24]

Mid-career literature: The Leavetaking and The Pornographer

The next novel, The Leavetaking (1975), introduces the reader to Patrick Moran, a young schoolteacher in Dublin. The novel is set during his last day in the school. He will be formally fired that night for having married a divorced non-Catholic woman during a leave of absence year. The novel is divided into two parts: both of which are essentially flashbacks. Part 1 covers the teacher's childhood up to the moment of his mother's death. Like McGahern himself, Patrick had promised his mother that he would become a priest and, as he is unable or unwilling to do so, instead becomes a schoolteacher (often referred to as "the second priesthood" in mid-twentieth century Ireland). Part 2 flashes back to how he came to meet his wife, how exactly the church authorities fired him, and his ultimate dismissal by the Catholic Church authorities, the formal authority within the vast majority of primary schools on the island of Ireland at the time. The book is a close reflection on McGahern's own experience of being dismissed from his teaching post in the early 1960s for much the same reasons as Patrick Moran, as well as the scandal caused by his second book, The Dark, for its many sexual references.

The Pornographer (published in 1979) details the life of the novel's protagonist who lives in Dublin and writes pornography for a living. He begins a sexual relationship with a young woman called Josephine, and when Josephine subsequently becomes pregnant, the "pornographer" voices his contempt towards the birth of the baby, and indeed his relationship with the child's mother. As with McGahern's previous novel, this work treats the subject of death by cancer – the protagonist's aunt in this case is dying in hospital – as well as visits to rural Ireland.

Back to the country: Amongst Women and That They May Face the Rising Sun (By The Lake)

His fifth, and perhaps McGahern's best-known, novel is Amongst Women (1990), which marks a return to the North Roscommon/South Leitrim setting after two Dublin/London books. It details the story of Michael Moran, an IRA veteran of the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War, who now dominates his family in the unforgiving farmlands surrounding Mohill in the south of County Leitrim. The book shows a detailed and understanding portrayal of a hardened, and unapologetically idealistic, protagonist in the figure of an ageing Moran. An ex-IRA commander, Moran detests the "small-minded gangsters" who now run the country for which he fought. Though Moran's presence surely dominates the novel, the positive attributes of his stern moralism and sense of self-worth are passed on to his children, who become successful adults (both emotionally and financially) in both Dublin and London alike. Once again, it seems to fit into a sequence, with the progressive male character most closely reflected by Luke, who left home, emigrated to London, and refuses to get close to his father again. One may view McGahern's portrayal of the Moran household as the house he left behind with the remaining kids being brought up by his father, his father's remarriage, and his young brother's struggles with his father and school. In 2015, The Guardian listed Amongst Women as 97 in its list of the 100 best novels.^[25]

His final novel, That They May Face the Rising Sun, which was published in 2002 (published in the United States as By the Lake), is a portrait of a year in the life of a rural lakeside community. The novel explores the meaning of prosaic lives and life in (a now-past life) in rural Ireland. He said "the ordinary fascinates me" and "the ordinary is the most precious thing in life".^[26] The main characters have – just like McGahern and his wife – returned from London to live on a farm. Most of the violence of the father figure has disappeared now, and life in the country seems much more relaxed and prosperous than in The Dark or Amongst Women, as McGahern now writes in a twenty-first century Ireland.

Novels

• The Barracks (1963) AE Memorial Award, McCauley Fellowship.
• The Dark (1965)
• The Leavetaking (1975)
• The Pornographer (1979)
• Amongst Women (1990), Irish Times/Aer Lingus Literary Award (1991), GPA Award (1992), nominated for the Booker Prize (1990).
• That They May Face the Rising Sun (2002), Irish Novel of the Year (2003), nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award. Published in the United States under the title By the Lake (2002)

Non-fiction

• Memoir (2005). Published in the United States in 2006 under the title All Will Be Well.
• Love of the World (2009) Collected non-fiction and essays.

Short story collections

• Nightlines (1970)
• Getting Through (1978)
• The Stoat (1978)
• High Ground (1985)
• The Collected Stories (1992), includes the three previous volumes of short stories (some of the stories appear in a slightly different form) and two additional stories – "The Creamery Manager" and "The Country Funeral". The former first appeared in Krina (1989).
• Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected Stories (2006) contains several stories collected in The Collected Stories, here revised by McGahern for the last time. Again two new stories, "Creatures of the Earth" and "Love of the World", are included.

Drama

• Sinclair (1971) (radio, adaptation of the short story, 'Why We're Here')
• The Barracks (1971) (radio, adaptation of the novel of the same name)
• The Sisters (1971) (television, adaptation of the James Joyce short story of the same name)
• Swallows (1975) (television, adaptation of the short story of the same name)
• The Rockingham Shoot (1987) (television)
• The Power of Darkness (1991) (theatre)

Short stories

Films

Amongst Women was filmed as a television mini-series in 1998, directed by Tom Cairns, and starring Tony Doyle as Moran.

One of McGahern's best-known short stories, "Korea", was made into a feature film of the same name directed by Cathal Black and produced by Darryl Collins in 1995. In 1996, Korea won the Asta Nielsen Best Film Award at the Copenhagen Film Festival and was runner-up for the Audience Prize at the Seattle Film Festival.

A film adaptation of That They May Face the Rising Sun premiered in 2023, directed by Pat Collins. The film won 11 awards, including Best Film, at the 2024 Irish Film & Television Awards.