SNIPPET: Tiernan DOLAN (a secondary school teacher in St. Mel's College, Longford), has written of well-known Dublin-born author John McGAHERN, a small farmer and one-time teacher who had lived in Co. Leitrim -- "How ironic that the genius of Irish literature, John McGAHERN, should be laid to rest on April Fool's Day. It seemed fitting though, that the astute observer of the changing seasons, should be returning just as the primroses, daffodils, cherry blossoms and whin bushes were beginning to brighten the dark, tired landscape. As the cortege approached the Longford/Leitrim border just after eleven on Saturday morning, the sun shone extra brightly and the first warmth of spring was felt. It was as if the great man was being welcomed home. And home he was, because it was just at the county border where the first little group of people gathered to pay their respects. One had left herding his cattle, another stopped on his journey to Dublin, another clutched a newspaper photo of McGAHERN. In Rooskey, along the Shannon, the crowd was a little bigger. A group of post-graduate students and their two lecturers from Limerick .... stood outside the hotel where they were doing a weekend residential school to show their esteem for the writer that they had all studied, read or taught at various levels. At Dromod the cortege left the main N4 and headed into real rural Leitrim. Old and young stood at crossroads, in gardens and at front doors, blessing themselves as their unlikely hero passed on his final journey. The town of Mohill came to a respectful stop. McGAHERN loved Mohill, its mart, its shops but most of all, its unassuming people. Shops and businesses closed their doors, engines were turned off, the people stood in silence, an elderly wheelchair-bound lady paid her respects as did a small group of hardy men at the mart entrance. He'd have liked that. At Fenagh some wore black arm-bands, a couple stood at the derelict Ivy Leaf ballroom as the fourteen-car cortege wound its way past rushy cattleless fields. In a field outside Ballinamore, two cheeky goats lay on some hay in a round feeder, as three bullocks did their best to pull at the scarce hay. How beautifully he'd have described that scene. Outside the Library in Ballinamore, children stood with parents. This day would be etched in their memories forever. A large group stood motionless and silent down where the old station used to be. How often the young McGAHERN gauged time by the passing trains. The school was passed. After he was sacked from his teaching post, McGAHERN, I think, was secretly happy to be away from the narrow petty minds. Hypocrisy and petty politicians were not to his liking. Aughawillan was waiting for the return of their most famous son. The little church was already full. Locals, literary people and journalists stood outside together; the visitors in awe of the scenery but the locals unfazed by the visitors. They had come to bury a friend, a neighbour, one of their own. That he was one of the best in the world at his chosen trade was simply a bonus. They held him in high esteem as they would a great footballer or the breeder of prize cattle. As Fr. Liam KELLY spoke lovingly ... a bee distracted the porch standers, a cock crowed from a nearby yard and a jet streaked across the skies. Ordinary sounds on an extraordinary day. In his last work, 'Memoir,' he says 'our heaven was here in Aughawillan.' John McGAHERN was back home in heaven. Back home in Leitrim." - Excerpt posted with written permission of editorial staff of "Leitrim Guardian 2007" publication.