20 JOURNAL OF THE COUNTY DONEGAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY. - ---- ------ - - --- Dunkineely was, in 1852, the birthplace of Patr~ck Sarsfi€ld C'assidy, once famous Americ:an journa'list, poet a.nd novelist. He h:as left us the !'Legend of Tory Island or St. .Oolumb.a's Conquest of the Druids" .and a1lSiO "The Bowowed Bride"--a fairy love le.gend of Oo. Donegal. Each of these is a long narrative poem running into many thousand lines. One of his novels, "Glenveigh or The Victims of Vengeance", is based on his personal impress.ions as an eye-wi,tness of one of the most dreadful eviction scenes ever enacted in Ioreland. . The Rev. Charles Read, the American Methodist -historian, was born in Ki11ybegs in 1792, and spent a goodly portion of his boyhood there before he and his family emigrated to America. Near KiHybegs, a'lso, was born Thomas Colin M'G1inley, one of the most brilliant Donegal men of the ninetBenth century. M'Ginley was a native of th'e townland of .Drumbar.ity, adopted primary tea.c:Jhing as his profession and Eipent his life teaching in sichools in the Killylbegs area. Re was an exicellent mathematician and educationalist, and one of hlis works wa·s a treatise on Ari1thmetic and Conic Sections. Another, his "Treatise on Bio.logy", became a prescri1bed textbook for the schools attached to the South Kensington Museum, L'.mdon. For us his m::ii't interesting work was his "Cliff Scenery of South-iWest Donegal", wh!ich was published in book form by the "Derry Journal" in 1867. As a ccrn;panion to this work I c:an recommend Arthur iW. Fox's "Haunts of the Eagle, Man and Wild Nature in County Donegal." I must now "frog lea.p" here and there through the Do.neigaI Gaeltacht so as not to encroach on the Gaelic section of our mbliography. This brings me to Q-lenties, where Patrick M'Gill, the navvy poet, was ;born in 1891. He was educated at the local national schools until he reached the age of twelve. At fourteen he had already had his poems putbl:ished by the "Derry Journal", and a year later set out for Scotland witJh 15s in his poc.ket. There he became a labourer, a plate-layer, a navvy, a soldier with the London Irish in the first World iWar. and the hmihand of Cl:i.rdinal Gibbons's niece His poetry includes "Songs of a Navvy" (D2rry, 1911J, and "Songs of Donegal" (1!;121). Mos-t of his novels have a C'o. Donegal background, and one of them, "Children of the Dead End", had an edition of ten thousand copies c·cmp'letely sold out in fifteen days. In contras.t to M'Gill's stark realism are the pu1blished works of three Glenties brothers__,Most Rev. Dr. James M'Devitt, Father John M'Devitt and Edward M'Devitt, B.L. His Lordship's magnum opus was "The Highlands of Doneg.al". Father John published a biography of his episcopal brother, and the layman of the trio wrote some valuable legal works. "My Story," by Paddy the Cope, .and the works of Peadar O'Donnell bring me to Dungloe. !if one wishes to delve deeper into the Anglo-Irish literature of this area I recommond the reader to begin wi'th Lord John Hill's "Hints to TOiuriSts", followed by the noble Lord's "F'acts from Gweedore". As an antidote take up Clanon J-ames M'Fadden's "The Agrarian Struggle in Gwtcdore" :and "Irish Distress and Its Remedies," written by J. H. Tuke, as well as "Letters from Donegal, 1886," by A Lady Felon or Denis Holland's "The Landlord from Donega;l". iWe are a:boiit to leave a distr·~c-t which aliways reminds me of a nigMimare. A:t Mount Charles, Anglo-Irish literatur8 bids goodbye to the light-hearted humorous stories of Seamus M'Manus, and I am apt to forget that this country- ~ide was the ha,ckg.round to C:ah1r Healy's "A Sower of the Wind" as well as his ''Escapades of Cony Garrigan." Stephen Gwynn's fiction and nonfictional works cannot prevent the lowe:ring of a piall of mel.Janchol-y, wh~ch de[1cends u1pon me as I r-ecollec,t the s1weet sadness of Elthna C'ariberry's "The Passionate H-2arts''. My nightmare proper begins with Arnold Bax"s "The Sist·ers and Green Magic", And it r.ises to all the sHent fury of a Greek tragedy in Bax's "Clhildren of the H:ills", with its vivid wo1rd painting of primitive pass.ions performing the maniacial rites of self immolation in a rock strewn, mist-covered, barbaric land. T'he nightma,re becomes more and more terrifying with the graphic sombreness of lM.'GHl's "Children of the Dead End", "The Ra.tipit'', "Glenmorna.n" and ">Maureen". But P'adar 0[)onn€ll's realism comes to my rescue, dispels the glocm and the countryside again possesses hu:man virtues undivorced from the faHalbilities and frailties of mankind, and I always leave the Rosses with the music of Heribert Hughes ringing in my ears. How very different are my imp-ressions of North-Western Donegal, for I norw :nsociated it with Barney Maglone in the laEt century ·and J. D. Sheridan in the present? She:riidan should now be well-kno1wn to every Done:g1alman
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