18 JOURNAL OF THE COUN'rY DONEGAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY. tailld d2scrtption -0f ,every householder in the county, and through them you pin-pioint the sites of homes whi.ch were \blotted olf the landscape by the GIRFiA T FAIMJINE and the evictions of the last century. C'J. Donegal f~g!Ures very lar.gely in the voluminous reports of Royal Commissions on !Land Tenure, Religion and Education wMch 1were held throughout the nineteenth century. Other published works which throw oonsideralble li'gh.t on the county of that period iwere "Pi:ggott.s Commercial Directory of Ireland, 18124," and IL;ewis' "Topograiphical Dictionary of Irefand, 1836.'" These are my selection frnm a very long list, as this. is 'but. a quick survey of sources of inf01.,mation on Clo. Donegal, frnm the years when the O'Olerys ceased to record its ~nnals. The task would be easier still H the "Derry Journal," which has 1been in existence since :1771, possessed a ccmplete 1file of its issues. The onl·Y numbers now availalble .a.t its office date f·rOlm the middle of the las.t cent.ury, and the only repository where one might !find a .complete file is in the news.paper department of the British Museum. The National Ubrary, Dublin, has ,a very fine collection of 17th l8th and 19th century [)ublin and uro~ Vinci.al news.pa,pers, but it possesses very few north-western 1peri:odk.als of rare vintage. This brings me to the birth of printing in Co. Donegal, and.my friend, the late Seamus.oiGaiside, B.L., an authority on this , suibje1ct, has recorded that the "Ballysh<i.I'lnon. Herald and. Done.gal Advertiser" w.as the first newspaiper published in the county. It was issiued from the 1press of D1.vid Carter, Castle S't.., Biallyshannon, :on the il.O:th J·une, 18~:1. It was later followed by another Ballyshannon product, "T'he L'1berator, a:id Dcnegal, Leitrim, Tyrone and Fermanagh. Ad:verrtiser'" c.v"nich issued its first number on the 22nd January, 1839. Since then Bally.sh.an"1.on has held its r.c;.cord of .a continuit.y in the journalistic hist.ory of the county. I sincerely trust the !British Museum is not the only im:titution whiich has preserved newspapers of Ball.yshannon origin. If Ballyshannon retains a unique position in 'Anglo-Ir' ~h printinir in the ~ounf.y, it ·C~lil also claim m any,honours in .l\n°1o-Iri•1' literature. ff'·r H i• the !'cene of the birth and boyhood of William A llir 00h:>,m. I hcne v ::rn do not ex:pect '"f' tri ":.gild the lil:v"-1beyond mv saving that Allinghaim's Anglo-Iris.h hslJads are to Co. Doneg:al what Yeats's are .to Co. Sltgo or Father Prout's are to Co. Oork. I am sorry to say that the only one of !Allinigham's works in the County Lilbrary is his "Night and Day Poems." You cannot .grull1llble for the Ubrary does not possess a slng1e copy of the numerous works of our Isaac Butt or of our Frances Browne the Blind Poetess of S.tranorfar. This is not the fault of the County Lilbrarian, as the works of Allingham, Butt and iMiss Browne are such a rarity on. the market that :Dulblin book-sellers: <J,ften assess their 1pr1ces in t·erms of their weight ih gold. I wpnder do many of you r1ealise that William Allingh.am was no the only literary memlber of his family, for I have found that his full brother, Dr. Ed1ward Allingham, a medical practitioner in ~elfast, wa.s also a ipoet, and puibllshed m 1890 a book of verse under the title of "New and Ori:glnal Poems." Their half-ibrother, Hugh, is remembered by his "History of Ballyshannon" and we are apt to overlook his valuable translation of the "Memoirs of Captain ·Cuellar", the 1commander of the Sipanish Armada .galleon whkh was wrecked off the coast of Co. Sligo. I have also been inform.ed that some of .a.n older generation of AUinighams settled as wine merchants in London, and that one of this .family, who was lborn in Biallyshannon, wrote and ,comiposed a numlber of popular musical farces for the London stage during the o:pening decades of the nineteenth 1cerrtury. H Allingham's works a,re such a rarity in the county it C'an hardly ibe e:ime.cted to po~.sess any of the Rev. John Read's poetry or 'Prose. He was 'born .in Ballyshannon on the 13th of November, 1837, and later became one of Canada's foremost j'ournaUsts, where he is not forgotten, as his poems are still included in Clana.ctian anthologies as exar.n<ples of that country's 'best poetry of the l'ast cent,ury. I a.~ceipt Canon Magulre's word for the literary ability of 'Bernard and .:Peter K elly. and r egret tha:t h e overlooked the Rev. Joseph Raymond who was born in Ballyshannon in 18612'. Father Riaymond wrote a ·considerable amount of. 'both prose and poetry, and were .publlshed occasionaHy through ~he pages of the "Donegal Vindicator", The J?undalk Democrat", "The Irish Oathohc", "'i:'he 'Lyceum" and many other magazmes and periodicals of his day. nr. Maguire, in his "Ballyhannon, Past and !Present", mentions a Mr. Crawford, of Ballyshanon, who wrote a bookle~, called "The Bane and the Andedote . I have no knowledge of its contents, and I should welcome some
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