Jy .bo1th to pods and audiences. David Hay of Carrigurt ·wrote. a ballad on the dreadful boating dis as1ter off Aranmore some years ago. Many of us ire-member the incideats leading up to the eve.~t de ... 'scribed in •'Jol:nson's Motoroar". About fourteen years ago there appoared a very popular ·epic -entttled "Sharks Beware,'' which re... corded, i.n stately Iambic Heptameter and with a wealth of imagi·nartive detail, the .shooting of a shark in nungloe Bay by two prominent Dungloe men, Mr. P. Gallagher (Paddy the Cope) and M.r. Ken- .ny J. Brennan. 9. 'rhe Geantraig1he or Music of Joy ,and .Ltaught~~r.-This type cov,ers all kinds of C:1ance tunes, and, as we have seen, Donegal has a :p:-olific store. of these. 10. 'Then there are songs of famine, exile a1!ld emigration. An example of an emi1gr1ation song is "Na Buiachilli i n-Albain", found by H. Morfi.s in the Gweebara district. Even St. Columba wrote verses of kr:ig!ng :"Tht:re is a gr,ay eye that looks back on Erin; it shall .not see during its life the men of Eri:n and their 1wives". 11. Finally the1"'le were song1s of work and play. The "Cailin Deas Cruiidhte!alch na mBo'' is a 1well-!know.n example. It is said that cows became .so .accustomed to /these liilt·s that they .ref.used to give milk unless their fia:vourites songs we.re 1sung !The result was that girls with good voices got higher wages. Don.~gail :poets.-Apart from 1the M"ac an Bhaird Clan of 1Ba.rdic School fame I have not mentioned ma1ny of the Donegal poets by name. The following are lisited in some of the i~1SS ; Eoghan Mor MaoGill, Antoine Mor 0 Doch1artaigh, Co.rmaeMac Seain and Philip Doyle. At 1the momei!lt I cannot trace their district of origin. There a.re others whos~ names are familiar to Dein~-gal people. Conall M1ac Daibhid, tbor,n in Meencargy, di!ed in Glendowan; 120 years ago. One of his 1poerns, "Malaidh Ghleann Domhair:." tells h)w he came to spend his declining years with.his married daughter in Glendowan wheire he felt like an exile. Nabla ;M,a1c 0Daibhid, no relative of Conan. She was a ;native of :Glenfinn and died well over 100 years ago. She married a man oalled GaUagher, and in a ipoc:m enti~tled ''Muir.ntear Ghtallchcbhair agus Ckn.n Daibhidh'' she records a supposed argum~mt. between herself -ind her husband ·as to the relatiive merits of the tw0 families. T·adhg 0 Tiomanaidhe (Timc.!ley, 1680-1750, wa1s also a native of, and lived in, Glenfinn. A song of his, "Grair.ne Fhanad", is said to be in prai.se of his wife who was a .~a1~ive of Fanad. \Pead2r Bre1athnach (Walsh), 1825.,1870, was a tailor who Uved in Meenagoland, betwee.n Finntown and Ballinamore. Peadar wrote quite a ,!lumber of ·songs, one of which was recorded in Gle.nfinn by the Folklore Commission's recording unit. It is called "Sr..ath na Bainrioghna" in whi:ch he pokes fun ·(l't the local women 1who are gr01wing rich ktnitting g.armo~.ts for tre Queen. As the yarn bore a tradema.:~:k .stamp2d with an image of Queen Victoria, the poet made 1t appear that the wool was ·sent clircrt from the Queen. Hence the title, the Queen's Yant Seamus O Doraidhin, BaclhCiin, Kilcar, 1780/"11850. Seamus was 300.
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