The Dark: A Critical Edition

by John McGahern, Anna Teekell (editor), Ellen Scheible (editor)

278 pages, Paperback

Published May 15, 2025

About the author

McGahern began his career as a schoolteacher at Scoil Eoin Báiste (Belgrove) primary school in Clontarf, Ireland, where, for a period, he taught the eminent academic Declan Kiberd before turning to writing full-time. McGahern's second novel 'The Dark' was banned in Ireland for its alleged pornographic content and implied clerical sexual abuse. In the controversy over this he was forced to resign his teaching post. He subsequently moved to England where he worked in a variety of jobs before returning to Ireland to live and work on a small farm in Fenagh in County Leitrim, located halfway between Ballinamore and Mohill. His third novel 'Amongst Women' was shortlisted for the 1990 Man Booker Prize.
He died from cancer in Dublin on March 30, 2006.

Reviews

[Dennis Callaghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important book. The second novel of a great Irish fiction writer. Published in 1965 and banned immediately in the Irish Republic, it is the story of a boy being raised on a farm by a widowed father with many children. It recounts his physical and sexual abuse by the father. He is a gifted boy who considers becoming a priest, but who is troubled by guilt over masturbation. There is a great scene of his going to confession and another great scene of his visit to a priest who is his cousin to speak about his vocation. It is tightly focused on his ambivalent relationship with his father whom he hates but on whom he depends for his livelihood. There are 4 critical essays on the novel as well as an illuminating introduction which I read after. You get to understand the context of the book in the light of the 20th and 21st century history of the systemic abuses in Ireland by the church and the government such as the Magdalen laundries, the mother and baby homes, the strictures against abortion etc. Reading McGahern is a prerequisite for understanding such writers as Anne Enright, Sally Rooney, Colm Toibin, Eimear McBride and others.