The legacies of Jennifer Johnston

Cross the soaring Foyle Bridge from the East and take the route to Donegal. Shortly before you cross the border — now completely imperceptible — you will find the grand, imposing gates to a country house. As you descend the drive, the hum of traffic subsides and the years, centuries, roll back. Had it been built a few miles to the west it might, like many others, have been consumed in the vengeful aftermath of 1916. Partition protected it from that, but half a century later its Georgian windows shook to bomb blasts from the city.

That Jennifer Johnston has spent most of her writing career in this place is magnificently, eerily appropriate. She is a daughter of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy. Yeats was a friend of the family. She met him when she was young, along with O’Casey, Shaw and others who have faded from memory to legend.

Her study is enviably beautiful.