On The Town: Many people grabbed the chance to hear John McGahern read from his latest work, Memoir, in the Long Room at Trinity College Library.
"It is the shadow book of all the other books," said writer Sebastian Barry, whose own book, It's a Long Long Way, is on the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize. McGahern's book "is a magical key" to his other works, Barry said. "Not many great authors would offer a key to the door of his work . . . It's like he's saying he's not afraid of the song of the book - it's a dark book, but he's not afraid of it and nor should anyone else be. That's medicine to a generation. It's a healing book."
Prof Declan Kiberd, of UCD, compared Memoir, to Tomás Ó Criomhthain's An tOileánach, because "it is a total portrait of a community by a man who has no egotism".
Prof Terence Brown of TCD said the book's "mesmeric prose singles it out - the rhythms are mesmeric, establishing a magical sense of the past".
Before McGahern read from Memoir, Prof Nicholas Grene, of TCD, spoke about the writer's speaking voice, which he said was extraordinary. "There's a kind of truth to the accent that he grew up with."
"He's obviously our greatest prose writer," said actor Stephen Rea.
Others at the launch of Memoir included TV producer Philip King; publisher Peter Fallon; poets John Montague and his wife Elizabeth Wassell; and John F Deane with his wife, Ursula Foran, whose father, William Foran, features briefly in Memoir - he taught in the same school as McGahern's mother.
Writing Memoir "was in my mind for a long time and then my sisters came with an enormous sheaf of letters that they found in the attic and asked me to write it and that put wheels under me. That put the pressure on," said McGahern. Those sisters - Margaret McGahern, Rosaleen Craig and Monica Gilligan - were there to enjoy the event with their families.
Memoir by John McGahern is published by Faber and Faber