LONDON (dpa) – The family of the late English writer John Le Carey, who became an Irish member of the European Union shortly before his death due to anger at Brexit, says.

“He was Irish at the time of his death,” his son Nicholas Conwell told the BBC in a radio documentary. The Man of the Letter will air on Saturday.

Carrey, whose real name was David Conwell, died in mid-December at the age of 89. Towards the end of his life he found his Irish roots. One of his grandparents was born in County Cork, Republic of Ireland.

In 1963, Le Care made his big splash with the spy “The Spy Who Comes Out of the Cold”. Two other dozen books followed. He was widely regarded as an observer of social developments, and the Iraq War, 2003, a popular movement in Poland and Hungary, and the politics of US President Donald Trump, which he often commented on world events, avoided criticism of the British government.