Frank Galligan's It Occurs To Me: Famous folk from Donegal

Names, like places, can evoke memories, for good or ill. Reading Inishowen historian Sean Beattie’s superbly researched book, “Famous Folk from County Donegal” certainly turned back a personal clock for me, albeit in a strange sibling context.

Regular readers of the acclaimed ‘Donegal Annual’ will need no introduction to Sean, as he’s edited no less than 24 of them. His latest publication is his fifteenth, and as ever, he is meticulous in his research and scholarly without being academically pedantic. Sean’s list includes: Bridie Gallagher – Ireland’s first international pop star; Cardinal O’Donnell – Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland; Charles Macklin – 17th century playwright and actor; Edward Boyce – from Letterkenny to Portland, USA; Eithne Coyle – early 20th century revolutionary; Frances Browne – poet from Stranorlar; Harry Swan – business man, author and historian; Honoria Galwey – 18th century music collector; Isaac Butt – the father of Home Rule; John Colgan – Carndonagh scholar and historian; John Doherty – social reformer from Buncrana; Kay McNulty – pioneer in computer programming; Liam Mc Cormick – award-winning architect; Madge Herron – celebrated Fintown poet; Mícheál Ó Cléirigh – chief author of the Annals of the Four Masters; Micí Mac Gabhann – seanchaí and memoirist; Paddy ‘the Cope’ Gallagher – pioneer of the Co-op; Peadar O’Donnell –  writer and socialist; Rev. Edward Chichester – radical Inishowen cleric; Rory Gallagher – rock guitar legend; Sarah Leech – weaver poet from the Laggan; Séamus Ó Grianna – great Rannafast writer; William Allingham – 19th century poet from Ballyshannon; William O’Doherty MP – a Carndonagh politician in Westminster; Elsewhere in the paper, Caoimhin Barr has written extensively about Sean’s book but I want to concentrate on someone who is perhaps not as exalted as others.

O’Grianna and Mac Grianna 
I was immediately drawn to the legendary Rann Na Feirste writer, Séamus Ó Grianna, as my schooldays would have introduced me to Caisleán óir (1924) in particular, one of an amazing 27 books he wrote, not counting translations. As Séamus Ó Searcaigh said in ‘Nua-sgríbhneoirí na Gaedhilge’ (1934): “The greatest praise he deserves is that he wrote books in which the best and purest Irish is to be found in Modern Irish”. In’ Léachtaí Cholm Cille’ 1974, the future Primate and Cardinal  Tomás Ó Fiaich wrote : “If the day ever came when all historical sources from Rinn na Feirste were lost at the end of the 19th century ... a work on the history of Rinn na Feirste in that century could be reconstructed from Máirín's books (Seamus was also known as ‘Maíre) that would be as complete as what was lost, and much more lively, interesting and humane”. 

The memory that his name evoked for me was his brother Seosamh MacGrianna. (note one was Ó and the other Mac). I loved Seosamh’s classic autobiography ‘Mo Bhealach Féin’, first published in 1940, which became a cult classic in the Irish language. As a border in St. Eunan’s College (Seosamh too was a past pupil) , I was snared by his Jack Kerouac type road trip through Wales and Scotland. Here was someone who was not afraid to say ‘No!’...again and again. In 2021, ‘‘This Road of Mine’ by Seosamh Mac Grianna,was translated into English by Míchéal Ó hAodha, and published by Lilliput Press. As Lilliput reminds us:

“This Road of Mine relates a humorous, picaresque journey through Wales en route for Scotland, an Irish counterpart to Three Men in a Boat with a twist of Down and Out in Paris and London. The protagonist follows his impulses, getting into various absurd situations: being caught on the Irish Sea in a stolen rowboat in a storm; feeling guilt and terror in the misplaced certainty that he had killed the likeable son of his landlady with a punch while fleeing the rent; sleeping outdoors in the rain and rejecting all aid on his journey. What lies behind his misanthropy is a reverence for beauty and art and a disgust that the world doesn't share his view, concerning itself instead with greed and pettiness.” Here is an extract:

One punch
“The next day I waited until I saw her leaving the house all dressed up. Rather than leave it too late, you better go for it now, I says to myself and I ran upstairs, as alert and quick as the cat pursuing the bird. Back in the room, I realised that I hadn't packed my bag right at all and that I’d left out the most important things. I pulled the bag open and threw in whatever I could. But like all the bags of the world, I couldn’t get it to close for me there and then. This was bad enough but I couldn’t even curse the bloody thing rightly while I was at it! I gave it one mighty push and eventually managed to get it closed, then stuck my head outside the door. The house was so quiet that I heard myself tremble and it felt as if a full hour passed before I negotiated the first flight of stairs and scanned the doors below – it felt so long. And if the sun outside hadn’t told me otherwise, I’d have a sworn a week went by before I reached the ground floor. I was just a few steps from the front door when the sitting-room door opened and who appeared all of a sudden but herself! And there was me thinking that the boss-woman must be a least a mile away by then! Who’ll deny that lodgings women have magic powers all of their own?

'Hey! Hey!’ she says and she rightly wound-up! ‘You’re not leaving until I get what I’m owed!’

‘Hang on! Hang on!’ I says. ‘I don’t owe you anything and don’t think you’re going to stop me leaving either! No man will stand in my way, I swear,’ I says, trying to push past her.

‘Hey, Cyril!’ she says. ‘Hey, Cyril!’

And where was the son but right outside the front door ready to block my escape. He put his hand on the glass of the front door and pushed his way in, then grabbed a hold of my bag. In that instant, and as clear as day I saw them – every tasteless drop of tea and every miserly slice of bread and every pretence of a dinner I’d ever had – in all twenty-five lodging houses – they flashed through my mind all at once. All the suffering and loneliness of those places rose up inside me like one powerful wave and I clocked that righteous, grey-streaked buck with an almighty punch.

I hit him so hard that I thought I’d broken all the bones in my hand and he crumpled onto the ground as if he’d been pole-axed stone-dead. I jumped out the door and made a run for it. I went around the corner at the top of the road and kept running and if I was followed, I didn’t see anyone. Then I slowed to a  walk. I wasn’t long convincing myself that I’d killed that man however and that I’d left him dead on the side of the road behind me and that I was in deep trouble. I was sure too that guilt was written all over my face and that anyone who passed by could see it clear as day. And I was sure that people were avoiding my gaze, it was so obvious. At one stage, I spotted a big, tough-looking guard across the street and I was sure that he’d recognised me and so I slipped around the corner as fast as a weasel through a ditch.”

A memory from St Conal’s
In 1959, Seosamh admitted himself to St Conal's Psychiatric Hospital in Letterkenny, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He stayed there for most of the next 31 years and died in 1990. In 1971, while a student in St. Eunan’s, I volunteered with some classmates for the local Vincent DePaul which meant visiting elderly people in Letterkenny or patients in St. Conal’s. Imagine my shock and pleasant surprise (circumstances notwithstanding!) at meeting the legendary Seosamh. I was awestruck and loved our occasional encounters. The words from his book which still resonate strongly with me are:

"What I would really love to do is turn the world upside-down so that there was magic in every living thing even if it was only scratching yourself. Indeed, I’d say that you’re probably not allowed scratch yourself anymore the way things are these days. But says I to myself – Hey I’m off to follow my own road now and without your permission either!" 

Sean’s book concentrates on, arguably, the more productive brother Seamus, one of many very engaging biographies included. It’s available from most bookshops or online from www.historyofdonegal.ie.