The colourful Irish-American author moved to Dublin to study at Trinity College, using that outsider experience to write his seminal classic 'The Ginger Man'.
Donleavy, who was born in New York to Irish parents but saw Ireland as his home, went on to write over a dozen other books, including an acclaimed autobiography.
JP was once the subject of a major 'Hot Press Interview' with our man Olaf Tyaransen. And Hot Press' Jason O'Toole was actually a neighbour of the great man of letters and occasionally visited him, recording many hours of in-depth interviews in the process.
"Behan was the first one to read the manuscript for The Ginger Man and he said, 'That’s a great book. That will go around the world'. I thought, 'God! Behan, you are such a bloody exaggerator!'" JP once told our man, O'Toole.
But that prediction in 1955 came true. Donleavy’s controversial debut novel, which was ranked 99 on the list of 100 best novels of the 20th century, has sold over 45million copies.
The salacious book was banned upon its release in Ireland, until 1968, as were several of his subsequent works. The book is also famous for its decades-long legal battle with Olympia Press over copyright infringement.
JP used to be required to write to the Department of Justice and An Post to request permission to have copies of his own books posted to him from the U.S. or UK. "I was allowed 24 copies or something like that. Banning anything means you’d increase your sales, so I wouldn’t complain," he recalled, laughing.
However, JP admitted to being upset when the stage adaptation at the Gate was cancelled after just three performances because the Archbishop of Dublin, John McQuaid, ordered it to be stopped.
The play’s leading actor Richard Harris told the press he wanted to fly over to Rome with the script to show the Pope. "It was unpleasant business," JP recalled. "It didn’t go down well with me. On the first night, someone shouted up from the audience, 'This has got to stop!' But they were frightened of Harris, who is such a big guy. They were terrified Harris might come off the stage.
"The Church sent an emissary to the theatre," JP added, "and threatened the owner that if he didn’t close this play something would happen. I was talking to Harris and one of the theatre doors opened and one of the priests came and as he passed, Harris said, 'There goes a battleship!'"
JP once told O'Toole that he frequently thought about death in his old age.
"It worries me often because if you are totally healthy and have no signs of dying, at what stage will I recognise that death encroaches?" he confessed.
"‘My mother, for instance, lived to be 96. I am conscious of that. I still drive. I don’t have, touch wood, any infirmities that I could recognise at present. I know that they must come and will come. And so I just go on. I do my exercises every day. I do my shadowboxing."
JP didn't believe in the afterlife, but said that it was enough that his "work lives on".
R.I.P.