Irish President Michael D Higgins said he was "deeply saddened" by Binchy's death.
BBC: Author Maeve Binchy dies aged 72
2.
Fellow novelist Jilly Cooper paid tribute, saying Binchy was "a natural storyteller".
BBC: Author Maeve Binchy dies aged 72
3.
In a 2001 interview with the BBC, after she had won the WHSmith Book Award for fiction, Binchy described the five rejections she received for her first novel as "a slap in the face".