Sean and Madeline return to Ireland and settle in Leitrim

John McGahern and Madeline Green’s return to Ireland culminated not in the fashionable Atlantic setting they first considered, but in a restored stone cottage near Leitrim village. The move brought McGahern back to the small fields and familiar lanes of his childhood, while his growing success as a writer made it possible for the couple to build a life there by choice rather than leave for work abroad.

From travel to a life together

McGahern’s return followed a period of movement and growing literary success. After meeting Madeline Green, the two began living together. The following spring, he accepted a visiting professorship in America, and they travelled there together. When they returned, they lived in Paris, where Madeline had a small apartment. McGahern’s first story collection, Nightlines, was published to a strong reception and won him a substantial prize; for the first time in years, he had money.

One evening in Paris, he asked Madeline whether she would consider living in Ireland for a year, with the understanding that they could leave if she disliked it. Through a friend, they found a house to rent by the sea near Clifden. The arrangement gave them a way to test a return without committing to it as permanent. They made friends, shared drinks with neighbours in local bars, and travelled by foot or bicycle; for longer outings, they took the bus to Galway. McGahern was lent a boat and began fishing in the ocean.

Their coastal life also brought them into local routines. Patrick O’Malley, a postman, farmer, and owner of the post office, became McGahern’s friend and fishing companion. They supplied fresh mackerel to the Renvyle Hotel when they had a surplus, receiving credit at the bar and restaurant rather than payment. A Dublin newspaper’s prominent report that McGahern had taken a cottage in Connemara caused a stir in the Pier Bar. The locals welcomed the praise of the area, while McGahern was dismayed by the attention. The episode showed how readily a private attempt to live quietly could become public news.

Returning to family and childhood ground

McGahern wrote to his sisters to explain why he and Madeline had returned without telling anyone and invited them to visit. He also told his father that he was back in Ireland and that they would call on him. His father knew that McGahern’s marriage had ended, but did not know about Madeline. McGahern expected him to disapprove of the new situation, yet intended to observe the outward courtesies of a visit.

For the journey to his father’s home, McGahern asked a young priest he knew from late-night gatherings at the Renvyle Hotel to drive them to Roscommon. The priest, Father Gibbons, usually dressed casually; McGahern asked him to wear a black suit and Roman collar for the occasion. On their arrival, his father withdrew into the dark hallway and remained silent toward both visitors. Agnes McShera filled the silence with talk about the family, made tea, and passed around biscuits and freshly baked bread. The father eventually questioned Father Gibbons, answering the social demands of the visit through the priest while continuing not to address McGahern or Madeline. The carefully arranged visit thus brought the couple back into the family home without resolving its reserve or disapproval.

They also hired a car and visited McGahern’s uncles. Uncle Pat still lived alone near the garage; Maggie’s former shop had become a small supermarket, and a new secondary school had grown up around the old railway buildings. Jimmy, the narrator’s uncle, had moved from the mountain to a cottage on the outskirts of town. His wife, Bridie Keegan, had died, and his three children were in England. He had brought his bees into town, where the hives stood in a white row, and kept a small cow. His spare, orderly cottage seemed to McGahern like a well-run boat, with nothing in it without a use. Though initially suspicious of Madeline, Jimmy gradually warmed to her and drove the couple into the mountains to see the old home place.

The house and land had begun to change without them. Weeds grew from the thatch, the whitewash had dulled, and the garden behind the surviving arch of whitethorns had run wild; the fields, too, looked abandoned. Jimmy doubted that anyone would live there again, judging the place too poor and backward. The visit made the cost of returning visible: the familiar landscape was still there, but the family home was no longer a thriving centre of life.

The coast considered, the inland chosen

During a hot, dry summer in Cleggan, McGahern and Patrick O’Malley fished with pots, nets, and lines. They caught lobsters, crayfish, crabs, salmon, sea trout, and several kinds of fish; Patrick sold the salmon, while they kept the sea trout. Madeline sometimes joined McGahern when he lifted or set pots, and the couple took visitors out by boat. They also made occasional trips to Inishboffin, possible only in calm weather: when the engine overheated, they had to let the boat drift until it cooled.

After finishing his own work for the day, McGahern often helped Patrick cut and manage turf on the bog. Patrick was proud, generous, curious, and competitive. Seeing how quickly McGahern worked, he suspected him of cheating, not knowing how much experience McGahern had gained handling the turf his father sold. Their work side by side led McGahern to mention that he and Madeline were thinking of buying land and settling in Ireland. Patrick immediately wanted them to settle near Cleggan. He found a solid, slated house and twenty acres, most of them along the ocean, and learned that the property could be bought for four thousand. He argued that the land alone justified the price and that the house could be improved or sold if Madeline disliked it.

Madeline did see that the house could be made habitable and loved its setting and fields, but she did not want to live there. She feared the area would become too fashionable and preferred the countryside inland, where McGahern had grown up. His own attachment was divided: he was drawn to the ocean, as he had once been drawn to the river and Oakport, but the people, language, and landscape of his childhood were as familiar to him as breathing. He believed that acquiring comparable knowledge of a new place would take years. Her preference therefore suited him, even though he would have been willing to make a life on the coast.

When McGahern told Patrick they would not buy the house and fields, Patrick was not surprised; he had read Madeline’s expression. He still thought the Cleggan property the most desirable place in the world and continued looking for other options. The disagreement was not about whether the coastal house could be repaired: the couple declined the place itself. Years later, when Patrick visited them in Leitrim, he was eager to return to the sea and the livelier coast he preferred.

Establishing a home and livelihood

The couple drove to Leitrim village and examined a number of small farms for sale. They chose a low hill behind the Ivy Leaf Ballroom, with small fields enclosed by tall, thick hedges. They restored and enlarged the stone cottage, bought a few cows for the fields, and began their life there. Instead of accepting Patrick’s proposed coastal setting, they made a home in the inland landscape that connected McGahern’s working life to his upbringing.

Making a living from writing proved easier than McGahern had expected. He and Madeline did not have to disappear into England or America for economic reasons, though they remained free to travel by choice and were never away for long. The outcome gave practical force to the idea of return: the familiar landscape was not only a place of memory but a viable home in the present. In describing his life beyond childhood, McGahern presents that separate life as a journey out from, and ultimately back to, the lanes, small fields, hedges, and lakes beneath the Iron Mountains.