If you have not already seen it, John Naughton has a very interesting account of McGahern’s funeral on his blog. I happened to be reading his Memoirs last week, and so learned of his mother’s death the day before I learned of his own. Here is one paragraph to demonstrate what we have lost; he was about eight when his mother died, and he went from his aunt Maggie’s to visit the grave:
I slept in the spare bed in Pat’s room and woke to the shunting of the morning trains. The early part of the day I spent happily with Maggie. Then I cycled out alone to the grave. All that came to me as I stood at the grave was the dull light from the fresh clay. When I put my fingers down into the clay, as if into water, and brought them to my mouth, all they tasted of was clay. I then knelt and willed myself to pray in the empty church.
“All that came to me as I stood by the grave was the dull light from the fresh clay”. Could any sentence be better?