quoted as history it nllay neverlhcle08 inlel'e:;t him 'lo hear what the folklore of the Fintown district says of the Hamiltons as landlords, and the relations between the latter and the O'Donnells. I must summarise and in regiard to dates I cannot but be vague. SOME time in the 'Thirties or the 'Forties, but before the Famine, a young man named Jeremi1ah O'Donnell, from Rusky or Convoy, came to Ballinamore. He had a glib tongue 1and a bright eye and succeeded in winning a c!1augr!ter of the house of Glassagh. Some time afterwards Mlajor James H31milton appointed Jeremiah as his •8gent. Now there was this difference between the landlord and the agent. The former was considerate and populor; the latter was detested. James Hamilton took measures to prevent any of his tenants from dying of hunger in 1847. Jeremiah O'Donnell of Ballinamore advocated U:e raising of rents. In fact a plot was laid in the early 'Sixties to terminate the career of Jeremiah, but it misciarried. JT is not my place to sit in ju::'gment on accepted and deep~rooted traditioi;s. Many a time has the Finn flc·::>ded its 'banks since, <a,s a lit1tle boy, I sat listening to truthful 1and venerable sbanahies de.scribing the men and the events of those far-off times. Scraig. The Editor, Donegal Annual. J·an.,1953. 445. TH!'! O'DONNEU:S OF THJ~ GLASSAGH. "Ailsa Lodge", Rosslare Harbour, Co. Wexford, 28th January, 1953. A Chara, W'HEN I read Captain Hamiltor's ~e•ter in the last issue of "The Annual" accusing me of neating fantastic legends and parading fables r0-<.;.Jove in my artic'.e "Captain \Ianus ()'Donnell", in Vol. 1, No. 3 (pps. 193/203) of the 1949 "Journa;" of foe Historical Society, my mind f1ashed back to that episode in the Captain's own autobiography, "My Times and Other Times", (p. 45) in which he prides himself that once at a .County Council meeting a member did not fully understand something that had te2n put forward. tut nevertheless accepted the, facts as coming from th2 Gentlerr.an of Brownhall ! I would like to think that my acc~sor h<id similar faith in 'his fellow men. Far from being a figment of my ima:gination, there are Chapter and Verse for every statement in that sketch but the fact that the paper was originally prepared as a talk is largely responsib'.e for my not having quoted them in the firf,t instance. The description of tllc Glassagh O'Donnells and their claim to belong to the main line of the Premier Family of Tirco.naill (a family that also has "blue" blood in their veinsalthcugh a distinguished representative of the present genera,tion tells me that his uncle always considered this "foreign" drop much infer.tor to their own!)
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