jouRNAL OF THE cotJNTY OONEGAL HISTORICAL .socrtd+. • in • • A.ngJo... Jrish Read before the Ballyshannon Branch of the Gaelic League on the 22nd MaTch, 1947, and before the County Donegal Historical Society in t.he Vocational School Stranorlar, on the 26th April, 1947. ' -BY~ J. C. ifaaffe MacDonagh, B.Comm. (N.U.I.), Cert.M.l.B.I. -.... OMIE weeks ago a few enthu- ~, sicasts, like myself, met at LiffoTd ~~-._ and there founded the county ....,,. Donewal Historiical Societ'Y.- This · society h!as for its Olbjects the preservation and diffusion of kn()lwledge pertaining to the literature, history and antiquities of 'the county. The infant society was entrusted to IF'ather Hugo Bonar and myself, and as its joint secretaries we have begun to carry one of the objects in!to effe,ct by compiling a Bibliography of the county.. I have taken on the ,Ang[o-lri.Sh section of this wOTk and my pa;rtner intends to make a similiar survey of the Gaelic literature of the county. We hope to enlist the aid oJl every person interested in the county, and we intend to P'lllbli'sh the result of these efforts in a ·special section of· the Hl..sfurical: Society's annual journaif. I shall be frank with you and must confess .that I hailed your kind inviltation to speak here thiis e.vening as an idea~ opportunity to do a litt~e p·ropagand:a work for the Historical Society. I am here this evening 'to give you some idea Of the work we are doing, for the su/bjec·t matter of County Done- .· gal in Anglo-Irish Literature is based upon a preliminary· survey. A solitar.y individual can only scrlftch the surface ·'-'-la team of workers is required to do the delrving. Here and now I must avow that fastidious literary tastes or a1eademic polemics play no part in my burnt for Co. Donegal Utem.ture and literati. I make this statement at the outset tn c,ase there are purists and stylists amongst you who would allow me to claim William Alllingham, od' Planter stock, as an Anglo-Irish writer, and debar me from speaking of John Toland (E:Oineen-ofthe-iBooiks), a pure-:bred Celt, because his books and pamphlets haNe little or no bearing on any aspe,ct of Irish life. I use the temn Anglo-Irish liiterature in its widest sense, and I can, therefore, speak on any work or part of a wor:.. written in the English lianguage on Go. Donegal or I can refer to any work written by .a na'ti<ve of the county. I shall not preface. my lecture proiper with further introduction beyond reminding you tha;t the opening decades of· the seventeenth century mar;ked an Indian summer for the Gaelic literature Of· Cb. Donegial. This quick,Jy passed aiway with the completion of the Ulster Plantiation, w.Mch destroyed an ancient culture. For well-ntgh two centuries aftenwards the onl'Y continuous litern.ry output from the comity rwere the Gaelic folksongs of a Mdden Ireland which the la.rw did not presume to ex·ist. If these were not ·familiar to me through the woriks of the late Henry Morris, and if I were fo apply the canons of criticism laid down by Thomas MacDonagh in
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