He was educated at Presentation College, Carrick-on-Shannon, and St. Patrick's Training College, Drumcondra, before moving on to University College, Dublin. At the completion of his studies, McGahern left Dublin to work as a laborer in London. He returned to St. John the Baptist Boys National School in Clontarf where he taught for seven years until after the publication of his first novel,
The Barracks, in 1963. This novel earned McGahern two of Ireland's most prestigious literary awards; he was the first prose writer to receive the A.E. Memorial Award and was also granted the Arts Council Macauley Fellowship in 1964. Most reviewers praised
The Barracks, noting a "talent who bears watching."
Set in a small town in the west of Ireland, The Barracks describes the death from cancer of Elizabeth Reegan, alienated second wife of a police sergeant. Longing for security and drawn back to her childhood home from a nursing career in London, Elizabeth had married and settled into the routine of police barracks life. Soon, however, she feels "shackled" to Reegan, with whom she shares no intimacy, and to stepchildren whom she desperately tries to mother.
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