Jennifer Johnston

Life and career Johnston was born in Dublin on 12 January 1930, to Irish actress and director Shelah Richards and Irish playwright Denis Johnston. A cousin of actress and film star Geraldine Fitzgerald, via Fitzgerald's mother, Edith (née Richards), Jennifer was educated at Trinity College Dublin, graduating in 1965 with a degree in ancient and modern literature. She was born into the Church of Ireland and many of her novels deal with the fading of the Protestant Anglo-Irish ascendancy in the 20th century. She was a member of Aosdána.

Awards and honours 1973 Authors' Club First Novel Award for The Captains and the Kings 1977 Booker Prize shortlist for Shadows on our Skin 2006 Irish PEN Award 2009 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature 2012 Irish Book Awards Lifetime Achievement Award

Personal life Johnston was married twice. In 1951 she married a fellow student at Trinity College, Ian Smyth. Their four children are Patrick Smyth, Sarah, Lucy, and Malachy. After marrying her second husband, David Gilliland, she lived in Derry. After being widowed, she moved back to Dublin. Her cousins included the actresses Susan Fitzgerald and Tara Fitzgerald.

Johnston suffered from dementia in later years. She died at a nursing home in Dún Laoghaire, on 25 February 2025, at the age of 95. Among the tributes paid to her was one by Irish President Michael D Higgins who recalled that "throughout her many novels and plays, provided a deep and meaningful examination of the nature and limitations of identity, family and personal connections throughout the tumultuous events of 20th century Irish life".

List of works Novels The Captains and the Kings (1972), Grace and Truth (2005)

Shadow Story (2012)

A Sixpenny Song (2013) Naming the Stars (2015)

Plays The Nightingale and Not the Lark (1981) published in The Best Short Plays 1983 (1983) Indian Summer (1984) O Ananias, Azarias and Misael (1989) Twinkletoes (1993)

Moonlight and Music (2000) The Christmas Tree: A Play in Two Acts'' (2015)