John McGahern’s relationship with Brother Placid

John McGahern’s relationship with Brother Placid links educational encouragement to a durable, practical loyalty. Brother Placid believed in McGahern’s ability before his success was assured, and McGahern later sought his help for Frankie when the boy’s troubles at home and school threatened to close off his options. Their bond was not simply that of former pupil and headmaster: the memoir remembers mutual liking, confidence tested by achievement, and assistance offered without pretending that it could solve everything.

Early confidence and the test of study

Brother Placid’s faith in McGahern appears early as a point of reference in family life. When McGahern’s father found him reading a serial comic instead of studying, he invoked the headmaster as the person whose confidence might be misplaced: “If reading that rubbish is all the use you can make of your studies, I’m afraid your friend Brother Placid will find that he has backed a dud. Anyhow neither of you can accuse me of having stood in your way.” The rebuke did not make McGahern abandon his reading. Instead, he became more determined to complete his schoolwork before turning to books for pleasure. Brother Placid’s confidence thus figures not as a vague compliment but as a standard McGahern was determined to meet.

When the Leaving results arrived, they justified that confidence. Brother Placid cycled out to the potato field at Coxhill to hear of McGahern’s success, and McGahern could now go on to university. The achievement mattered beyond the examination itself: it confirmed that the headmaster’s support had been well placed and opened several possible routes forward. McGahern’s father drove him to interviews and oral examinations, displaying an unusual pride in his son’s prospects, but the educational faith specifically associated with Brother Placid had already been vindicated by the results.

A vocation within a restrictive institution

McGahern ultimately accepted a place at the teacher-training college, where the State provided board and tuition and guaranteed employment. He describes admission as a “call,” a word that reflected the profession’s origins within the Church in Ireland. His choice followed a period of uncertainty: although university remained possible, he expected that it would require financial assistance he was too proud and practical to request. The account presents his decision as responsible, but it also preserves the larger significance of Brother Placid’s earlier encouragement: academic success had made choices possible even when McGahern did not take the university route.

The training college imposed a sharply different world from the freedom and openness McGahern associated with Carrick-on-Shannon. Daily Mass and evening devotions were compulsory; religious societies flourished, while historical, literary, philosophical, and Gaelic societies were absent. Students were watched chiefly for their willingness to conform, and the threat of expulsion hung over the institution. McGahern found it barbaric, though students arriving from diocesan seminaries considered it comparatively blissful. In that restrictive setting, he found room for a private purpose: the courses could be left largely aside until shortly before examinations, while books circulated secretly among students. His reading for pleasure continued to change and deepen. Brother Placid’s faith had helped carry him toward this education, but the account also shows McGahern making an inward life that the institution itself did little to provide.

Returning to Brother Placid for Frankie

Years later, McGahern went to the monastery to ask for Brother Placid’s help with Frankie. The return has a quiet intimacy: after the long absence, Brother Placid came down the wide stairs polishing his spectacles with a white handkerchief, and for McGahern it was briefly as if he had never left. Brother Placid first showed surprise, then pleasure. McGahern’s recollection makes their mutual regard explicit: “We liked one another.” The former pupil was no longer asking for himself; he had come because Frankie needed encouragement and a way back to school.

Brother Placid explained that Frankie had already been punished several times for missing school without explanation. More seriously, the boy had become disruptive and was influencing younger, weaker pupils; he was also smoking and drinking, matters Frankie had concealed from McGahern. Brother Placid did not excuse the conduct, but he distinguished the trouble from the boy’s capacity, saying Frankie had “loads of ability” while sensing that “there’s something wrong or missing.” His response held discipline and possibility together: if Frankie returned, he could begin again with a clear slate, but he would have to keep it clean.

McGahern carried the arrangement back to Frankie, who was both sheepish and defiant. Frankie agreed to return the next day, though without enthusiasm. Their father, Francis (Frank) McGahern, called McGahern a fool and predicted that Frankie would come to nothing. The intervention bought little time. Frankie remained at war with his father, fell into trouble at school again, and eventually set out for school only to hitchhike to Dublin instead. McGahern offered to share a flat with him and send him to school there, but Frankie broke down and said he could not bear studying any longer and was going to London. McGahern recognized that Frankie was too unsettled for his own or anyone else’s tutelage; Rosaleen arranged to meet him at Euston, and within a week he had found work. Brother Placid’s offer was meaningful, but the subsequent events show its limit: a renewed school place could not by itself settle the conflicts driving Frankie away.

A bond remembered through family conflict

The relationship also survives in the family’s memory of McGahern’s academic success. Brother Placid had placed McGahern’s photograph in local newspapers as an advertisement for the school after he won scholarships. Francis (Frank) McGahern disliked Brother Placid and regarded the publicity as gloating and self-congratulation. The episode places their support for McGahern in sharp contrast: Brother Placid publicly celebrated the achievement, while his father read that celebration as an affront. The remembered “cut” between the two men reaches back to the scholarships, making McGahern’s success a source not only of opportunity and pride but also of friction within the family.

Across these episodes, Brother Placid’s influence is practical rather than absolute. He recognizes McGahern’s promise, celebrates the result, and later helps him offer Frankie another chance. The relation is therefore defined by a recurring act of belief—first in a pupil’s studies, then in a troubled boy’s remaining ability—without suggesting that belief can override family conflict or guarantee an outcome.