[1] Donoghue was born at Tullow, County Carlow, into a Roman Catholic family, the youngest of four surviving children.
He was brought up in Warrenpoint, County Down, Northern Ireland, where his father, Denis, was sergeant-in-charge of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
[5] In 1980, he was appointed to the Henry James chair of English and American letters at NYU, his final teaching post.
[4] On 7 December 2018, aged 90, Donoghue married his longtime partner of more than twenty years, Melissa Malouf, in North Carolina, USA.
He is survived by his second wife Melissa, his children (David, Helen, Hugh, Celia, Mark, Barbara, Stella and Emma), and a large extended family.