Sadness and delight alternated as participants walked the lanes of his Leitrim heartland, writes Marese McDonagh.
THE HAY has been cut where the house at Corramahon once stood. Last Saturday morning as a crowd of 70 or so people scanned the sun-drenched meadow searching in vain for evidence of the house, many blinked back tears.
Not a stone remains, but they could picture the heart-breaking scene which had unfolded on this spot almost 65 years ago when nine-year-old John McGahern forced himself to turn away from his mother's death bed .
"I came to say goodbye. Mammy," Leitrim county librarian Seán Ó Suilleabháin read in a low voice from the pages of Memoir. "Her eyes were fixed on my face; she seemed very tired," he continued.
People stared down at the spot where the cinder path once led to the still-present small iron gate as their guide told how the children and the red hens and most of the furniture were packed into a lorry and Susan McGahern's oldest child considered putting his arm around the leg of the bed "so that they wouldn't be able to drag me away and they'd be forced to leave me with her in the room forever".
On Saturday, the seminar moved right into the McGahern heartland, into Aughawillan and Ballinamore; even those acutely aware of the precision of his writing were surprised at how the landscape matched the words.
Even as local historian Frank Brennan explained the significance of the location, a car pulled in for petrol across the street at the small garage once owned by McGahern's late uncle Patsy. On the other side of the square is the Gala shop with its Lotto signs and cylinders of Kosangas outside the door, which when it was owned by his aunt Maggie, was a frequent refuge for both John and his mother.
"Many's the time I saw John and Patsy sitting by an old Superser having a chat inside the garage door," recalled Frank Brennan, as the man who worked side-by-side with Patsy for many years emerged to fill the petrol.
Long before Memoirwas published, locals delighted in the portrayal of Patsy and John Fox in That They May Face the Rising Sunas the Shah and his sidekick Frank Dolan - who never spoke despite working together for decades.
John Fox still doesn't say much, but he is welcoming and happy to share his memories of the writer who has immortalised him - and several other neighbours - some in a less flattering light.
As he continued to fill the petrol, his customer interjected to say that she had been in John McGahern's class at Aughawillan school. "His mother Susan taught me. She was beautiful, a lovely lady, gentle and quiet ," recalled Kitty McTague.
The group, moved at the old family home, now gasped in delight as they spotted landmarks he described so often on the route to the two-teacher school. There was no need to imagine anything.
Brady's house was there and right on cue Hugh Brady emerged to describe his boyhood memories of walking to school with the writer and how sad everyone felt the day the children were packed into the truck and taken to live in Cootehall.
The group moved to the writer's grave. A new headstone has been erected. The large limestone cross with a Celtic design and a white marble Jesus that Frank McGahern chose for his wife's grave has been replaced by a more modest affair since her son died.
Mrs McGahern's family name has been added to the inscription which reads simply: "Susan McManus McGahern NT, 2 May 1902 - 22 June 1944; John McGahern 12 November 1934 - 30 March 2006." Mother and son at home and at rest together.
Frank McGahern lies with his second wife in Ardcarne graveyard in Co Roscommon where Seán Doherty, another son of Cootehall, is also buried.