Donegal Annual / Bliainiris Thír Chonaill, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1947)

JboMAL_.Qr__ TB:E COUNTY DONEGAL HtSToa1CAL ~oCrnf. Fle,me and the Flood'; and "The Third bperiment," are described as Nationalist iby sympathy and inclination. Glenalla was also the birth-place of the Rev. Cbtchester-Hart, who became one of Ireland's foremost Naturalists of the nineteenth century. Hls writings <>n "!?8.re Plants of Donegal" and "The Flora of Innlshowen" may be found amongst the Proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society and the Ro~·l Irish Academy from 1879 onwards. Copies of hls book, "Flora of Donegal" are sometimes .oftered for sale in journals such as the "Irish Book Lover." Gartan and the surrounding countryside figure largely in the various studies .of St. C-Olmcille a.nd his early biographer, St. Eunan, Patron Saint of Raphoe. This collection ls wide and varied and ranges from the scholarly work of the Rev. W. Reeves to the beautifully produced Trias Thaumaturgis" of Miss cusack when she was "The Nun of Kenmare." We have St. Columcille even figuring in the "Druidess," a wlld tale of adventure told with realistic vividness for boysand others~by Mrs. Florence Gay and published in 1908. Glenvea.gh figures in two very readable novels in modern settings and with light themes. One is "The Glen of the Silver Birches," by E. Owens Blackburn. The other is "The Story of Parson Annally," by the Rev. Richard Sinclair Brooke, D.D., the author of "Recollections of the Irish Church" and the father of one of County Donegal's most illustrious sons, the Rev. Stopford •Brooke. !The younger Brooke was born in 1832 in Glendoan Manse. near Letterkenny, and is stlll ----~"'"""'"" "Ohimney Corner" you will lfl.nd examples of two Glenswllley .poets-James (Greer, a Presbyterian tanner of the l'880's, and Hugh Gildea, a young emigrant, who died in a New World sanatorium in 1922. During our Civic Week oanon-Kerr:gave us some delightful examples of two other Glenswilley poets, ,Michael and Bridget 'M'Ginley. One of M'Ginley's sweetest songs is "The Hills of :Glenswilley," which he comPOsed while sailing round the Cape of Good Hope in the S.S. ·Invercargill, in 1878, on hiS way to New Zealand where he llved for some years. canon Kerr also gaYe us some stanzas by another Kilmacrenan poet, Niall MaoGiolla Bride who, also, has one of his poems quoted ln Harry P. Swan's "Book of Innishowen." '!'he only notaible person I find, as y~t. associated with Letterkenny is the Rev. Robert Patterson who was born there !n 1829. He emigrated to the New World and was, for a time, pastor of Reformed Presbyterian Churches In '.Philadelphia and California. Dr. Patterson was the author of several works of Theology and S"acred History. I have yet to catalogue the literature pr<>duced by Simon Maddock, a Limerick compositor who set up the printing house in Letterkenny, which 'became the forerunner of the many printing establishments now in existence there. Thirty years ago the "Irish Book Lover" referred to the Federal Press at Letterkenny, and I am anxious to obtain a list of Its publications. These appear to be as elusive as Dr. Magui·re's pamphlet "Letterkenny and its Surroundings." regarded as one of the great literary I shall not dwell too long in the barony· critics of the last century. .His "Primer" of Innlshowen, as much of its literature of .English Literature earned very high is still available. A new edition of Harry praise from Matthew Arnold, e.nd he was · Percival swan's "Book of Innishowen" is also the editor of Shelley's poems for the Golden Treasury series. He ls best now In the hands of printers. In 1935 ri>membered to-day for the deep inter.est a Carndonagh tlrm reproduced Michael which he took in the IriSh Literary Harkln's or "M'aghtocair's" rare , and Society, as he succeeded Sir Charles valuable "Innishowen" at a very moderGavan-Duffy as its President. and one ate price, and justly ignored M'iLougho! his lectures to the Society, "The Eng- lin's "Innishowen Since the Days of Ush Language as an Instrument of Irish M.aghtocair," which wa8 published in Llterature" had a marked effect on the London in 1909. The Cbunty Library Irish Literary revival In the closing de- has W. J. Doherty's "Innishowen and cades of the last century. In 1880 Tyrconnell,' but I miss from Its shelves Brooke wrote "The Rlquet of the Tuft," a his .pamphlets "The Attbey of Fahan," three-act drama in ,prose and verse, and ''The Orosses and Antiquities of InnlshUke bis poems published In London in owen," as well as his 1book "Antiquarian 1888, they became, for a time, a model and Topographical Notes on County for Yeats, Martin. Lady Gregory and Donegal," which he published in 1891. other playwrights of the infant Abbey I also miss F. J. Biggar's scholarly little Theatre. He is also remembered, in pamphlet "Innishowen and its Crosses,'' Ireland, as joint-Editor with T. w. which the "P erry Journal" .printed for Rolleston of ''A Treasury of Irish him in 1916. · · Poetry." In $eamus M'iManus's little magazine .I11nishowen recalls to mind two delightful novels of a pas~ generation, ln

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