{{Short description|Irish writer (1930–2020)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2024}} {{Use British English|date=December 2016}}
{{Infobox person | name = Eugene McCabe | image = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date|1930|7|7|df=y}} | birth_place = Glasgow, Scotland | occupation = Novelist, playwright, short story writer, farmer | notable_works =''Death and Nightingales'', Cancer trilogy (''Cancer'', ''Heritage'', ''Siege'') ''Tales from the Poorhouse'', ''King Of The Castle'' | awards = | website = | death_date = {{Death date and age|2020|8|27|1930|7|7|df=y}} | death_place = Cavan, Ireland | death_cause = | resting_place = Clones, Ireland | children = 4, including Ruth McCabe<ref>{{Cite web |date=August 27, 2020 |title=King of the Castle playwright and author, Eugene McCabe dies aged 90 |url=https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/king-of-the-castle-playwright-and-author-eugene-mccabe-dies-aged-90-1015166.html |website=BreakingNews.ie}}</ref> }}
'''Eugene McCabe''' (7 July 1930 – 27 August 2020) was a Scottish-born Irish novelist, short story writer, playwright, and television screenwriter. John Banville said McCabe was "in the first rank of contemporary Irish novelists'.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Eugene McCabe |url=https://www.fantasticfiction.com/m/eugene-mccabe/ |website=FantasticFiction.com}}</ref>
==Biography== Born to Irish emigrants in Glasgow, Scotland, he moved with his family to Ireland in the early 1940s.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web |title=Clones Hall of Fame |url=http://www.clones.ie/Hall-of-Fame/Eugene-Mc-Cabe |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716202853/http://www.clones.ie/Hall-of-Fame/Eugene-Mc-Cabe |archive-date=16 July 2011 |access-date=22 December 2010}}</ref> He lived on a farm near Lackey Bridge, just outside Clones in County Monaghan.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Aosdána |url=https://aosdana.artscouncil.ie/members/mccabe-2/ |access-date=27 August 2020 |website=aosdana.artscouncil.ie}}</ref> He was educated at Castleknock College.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Doyle |first=Martin |last2=Leavy |first2=Adrienne |title=Eugene McCabe, author and playwright, dies, aged 90 |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/eugene-mccabe-author-and-playwright-dies-aged-90-1.4340171 |access-date=2020-08-28 |work=The Irish Times |language=en}}</ref>
His play ''King of the Castle'' caused a minor scandal when first staged in 1964, and was protested by the League of Decency.<ref name="auto" /> McCabe wrote his award-winning trilogy of television plays, consisting of ''Cancer'', ''Heritage'' and ''Siege'', because he felt he had to make a statement about the Troubles.<ref name="auto" /> His 1992 novel ''Death and Nightingales'' was hailed by Irish writer Colm Tóibín as "one of the great Irish masterpieces of the century"<ref>{{Cite web|website=Powells.com |via=Wayback Machine |title=Atlantic Monthly review of ''Death and Nightingales''. |url=http://www.powells.com/review/2002_04_16.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121023092316/http://www.powells.com/review/2002_04_16.html |archive-date=23 October 2012 |access-date=22 December 2010}}</ref> and a "classic of our times" by ''Kirkus Reviews''.
He defended fellow novelist Dermot Healy, who had been negatively reviewed by Eileen Battersby in ''The Irish Times'' in 2011, using the Joycean invective "shite and onions", provoking controversy in the Irish literary community.<ref>{{Cite news |last=McCabe |first=Eugene |date=29 March 2011 |title=Another take on 'Long Time, No See' |url=http://www.irishtimes.com/debate/letters/another-take-on-long-time-no-see-1.585732 |access-date=29 March 2011 |work=The Irish Times |publisher=Irish Times Trust}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Jarman |first=Mark Anthony |date=8 July 2011 |title=A brilliant return for Dermot Healy |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/long-time-no-see-by-dermot-healy/article599376/ |access-date=8 July 2011 |work=The Globe and Mail}}</ref>
Fintan O'Toole noted how living in Monaghan, just across the border from Fermanagh, informed McCabe's writing, and described him as "the great laureate of...indeterminacy, charting its inevitably tragic outcomes while holding somehow to the notion that it might someday become a blessing."<ref>{{Cite news |title=Eugene McCabe: The great - but often forgotten - laureate of indeterminacy |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/eugene-mccabe-the-great-but-often-forgotten-laureate-of-indeterminacy-1.620218?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fculture%2Fbooks%2Feugene-mccabe-the-great-but-often-forgotten-laureate-of-indeterminacy-1.620218 |work=The Irish Times}}</ref>
Eugene McCabe died on 27 August 2020, aged 90.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Crowley |first=Sinéad |date=27 August 2020 |title=President Higgins pays tribute to playwright Eugene McCabe |url=https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0827/1161644-mccabe-death/ |access-date=28 August 2020 |work=RTÉ News}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Eugene McCabe, author and playwright, dies, aged 90 |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/eugene-mccabe-author-and-playwright-dies-aged-90-1.4340171 |work=The Irish Times}}</ref>
==List of works== ;Plays * ''A Matter of Conscience'' (1962) * ''King of the Castle'' (1964) * ''Pull Down a Horseman'' (1966) * ''Breakdown'' (1966) * ''Swift'' (1969) * ''Gale Day'' (1979) * ''Victims'' (1981)
;Television plays * ''Cancer'' (1973) * ''Heritage'' (1973) * ''Siege'' (1973) * ''Roma'' (1979)
;Novel * ''Death and Nightingales'' (1992)
;Novella * ''The love of sisters'' (2009)
;Short story collections * ''Victims: A Tale from Fermanagh'' (1976) * ''Heritage and Other Stories'' (1978) * ''Christ in the Fields, A Fermanagh Trilogy'' (1993) * ''Tales from the Poor House'' (1999) * ''Heaven Lies about Us'' (2005)
;Children's books * ''Cyril: The Quest of an Orphaned Squirrel'' (1987) * ''Cyril's Woodland Quest'' (2001)
;Non-fiction * ''Shadows from the Pale: Portrait of an Irish Town'' (1996)
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20101010064537/http://english.slss.ie/deathandnightingales.html Eugene McCabe answers questions about ''Death and Nightingales''] * [https://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2010/dec/07/colm-toibin-eugene-mccabe Colm Tóibín reads the short story "Music at Annahullian" by Eugene McCabe] * [http://www.crossborder.ie/notes-from-the-next-door-neighbours/a-tribute-to-eugene-mccabe/ A Tribute to Eugene McCabe] * [http://archive.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2004/04/18/deliver_into_darkness/ Review John Banville, The Boston Globe: With the sorrowing stories of Heaven Lies About Us, Eugene McCabe gets to the heart of the Irish predicament]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:McCabe, Eugene}} Category:1930 births Category:2020 deaths Category:Scottish people of Irish descent Category:Irish male dramatists and playwrights Category:Irish male short story writers Category:People from Clones, County Monaghan Category:20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights Category:20th-century Irish novelists Category:20th-century Irish male writers Category:Irish male novelists Category:21st-century Irish dramatists and playwrights Category:21st-century Irish novelists Category:20th-century Irish short story writers Category:21st-century Irish short story writers Category:21st-century Irish male writers Category:Writers from County Monaghan Category:People educated at Castleknock College