Award-winning Irish writer Jennifer Johnston dies

The award-winning Irish novelist and playwright Jennifer Johnston, known for her novel How Many Miles to Babylon?, has died aged 95.

The celebrated author, who wrote dozens of novels and plays, was born in Dublin in 1930 and in the 1970s moved to Londonderry, which became her home for much of her adult life.

A child of the playwright Denis Johnston and actor and producer Shelah Richards, her first novel, The Captains and the Kings, was published in 1972 and How Many Miles to Babylon? two years later.

In 2012, she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Irish Book Awards and was one of the writers nominated in 2014 for the position of first Irish Laureate for Fiction.

She was a much loved and celebrated figure in Irish literature, known for exploring themes like Anglo-Irish identity and the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Her novel Shadows on Our Skin was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1977.

The book, which was set in Derry in the 1970s, followed Joe Logan navigating teenage life against a backdrop of bombs and bullets.

Ms Johnston had been diagnosed with dementia and died on Tuesday at a nursing home in Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin.

The President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, paid tribute to the author.

"Throughout her many novels and plays, Jennifer Johnston 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," he said.

"It is noteworthy that her work has always been championed by so many of her fellow writers, who have acknowledged her as one of the finest of Irish novelists.

"So many of them have recorded her as a strong influence on so much of their own work."

Ms Johnston's friend, Mary Murphy, described her as a "formidable force" with "a wicked sense of humour".

"She was a brilliant conversationalist, an evening spent with Jennifer would have you going from being stimulated intellectually and philosophically one minute, and the next, you would be bent over laughing," Ms Murphy told BBC Radio Foyle's Mark Patterson Show.

Ms Murphy said Ms Johnston never did anything half-hearted and put her heart and soul into everything she did, adding that her body of fantastic work is testament to that.

She also described her deep love for the city of Derry and its people, saying she was very happy to call the place her home for so long.

"She became very quickly part of the intellectual life of the city," Ms Murphy said.

"Jennifer loved it here, she was thoroughly involved here."

Mary Murphy added that she would remember her as a dear friend and, above all else, a truly fantastic writer whose work will stand the test of time.