{"id":423537,"date":"2026-04-29T14:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T14:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/423537\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T14:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T14:34:11","slug":"gordon-snell-childrens-author-and-husband-of-maeve-binchy-dies-aged-93-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/423537\/","title":{"rendered":"Gordon Snell, children\u2019s author and husband of Maeve Binchy, dies aged 93 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/gordon-snell\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/gordon-snell\/\">Gordon Snell<\/a>, the children\u2019s author, journalist and husband of the late <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/maeve-binchy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/maeve-binchy\/\">Maeve Binchy<\/a>, has died aged 93. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He published his first book for children, The King of Quizzical Island, in 1978, following it up with Amy\u2019s Wonderful Nest, Tina and the Tooth Fairy and The Supermarket Ghost, among others.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He met Binchy in the 1970s, when she was appointed to the London office of The Irish Times. The pair married in 1977 and moved to Ireland in the early 1980s. Binchy died in 2012; the couple had no children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Snell was born in 1932 in Singapore, where his father worked as a surveyor. In 1942 his mother brought him to Australia to settle him into boarding school. She had intended to return to Singapore almost immediately but could not do so after the Japanese invasion began.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Snell did a degree at Oxford, then became a radio-studio manager at what is now the BBC World Service.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Maeve Binchy and Gordon Snell in 1991. Photograph: Ian Cook\/\/Time Life Pictures\/Getty Images\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/XP4KEINKEVDKRBLQFRFSDTDQU4.jpg\"   width=\"800\" height=\"800\"\/>Maeve Binchy and Gordon Snell in 1991. Photograph: Ian Cook\/\/Time Life Pictures\/Getty Images <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">After moving to Ireland he wrote scripts for RT\u00c9, including for the popular children\u2019s show Wanderly Wagon. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In 2009 Binchy revealed that Snell had had a heart-bypass operation. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/books\/2023\/12\/19\/gordon-snell-on-his-wife-maeve-binchy-we-rejoiced-in-each-others-successes-neither-of-us-felt-at-all-jealous\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gordon Snell on his wife, Maeve Binchy: \u2018We rejoiced in each other\u2019s successes. Neither of us felt at all jealous\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In a 2023 Irish Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/books\/2023\/12\/19\/gordon-snell-on-his-wife-maeve-binchy-we-rejoiced-in-each-others-successes-neither-of-us-felt-at-all-jealous\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/books\/2023\/12\/19\/gordon-snell-on-his-wife-maeve-binchy-we-rejoiced-in-each-others-successes-neither-of-us-felt-at-all-jealous\/\">interview<\/a> with the writer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/author\/henrietta-mckervey\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/author\/henrietta-mckervey\/\">Henrietta McKervey<\/a>, Snell said: \u201cMaeve and I always said we were very lucky, first to have met each other but also that we realised we were lucky. It\u2019s one of the most important things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gordon Snell, the children\u2019s author, journalist and husband of the late Maeve Binchy, has died aged 93. He&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1578,93,185359,61,60,185358,6085],"class_list":["post-423537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-bbc","tag-entertainment","tag-gordon-snell","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-maeve-binchy","tag-rte"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}