Micí Mac Gabhann

Micí Mac Gabhann (22 November 1865 Cloughaneely, County Donegal, Ireland - 29 November 1948) was a seanchaí and memoirist from the County Donegal Gaeltacht.[1] He is best known for his posthumously published emigration memoir Rotha Mór an tSaoil (1959). It was dictated to his folklorist son-in law Seán Ó hEochaidh and polished for publication by Proinsias Ó Conluainn. The account won wide praise and was translated into English by Valentin Iremonger as The Hard Road to Klondike (1962).[2]

Life

Early life

Micí Mac Gabhann was born "in a little thatched cottage" near the Atlantic Ocean in Derryconnor Townland on 22 November 1865. His parents' names were Thomas Mac Gabhann and Bridget Cannon.[3]

As a boy, he witnessed the pervasive making of poitin by local families, the resulting violence between local residents and law enforcement, and the imprisonment of his own father for poitin-making.[4]

Despite the fact that he had spent some time some time attending the district school at Magheraroarty, Mac Gabhann lamented that he never knew enough English to understand the teacher. He later attributed his education to local resident Sean Johnny, who had attended a hedge school as a youth and who taught Mac Gabhann and other local boys according to the same method.[5]

The Hiring Fairs

In May 1874, the Mac Gabhann family had become so destitute that Bridget brought her 8-year-old son to a hiring fair in Letterkenny. There, wealthy farmers and landowners "were looking for boys that would herd and give a bit of service around and for bigger boys that would help with the agricultural work." After bargaining through an interpreter, a landowner from Glenveagh bought Micí until the following November in return for the sum of £1 paid to his mother. As he said a brief and painful farewell to her, Micí noticed that his mother, "was tightening up her face as though a dagger was going through her heart."[6]

During his months herding cattle near Glenveagh, Mac Gabhann befriended many local residents, learned a considerable amount of English, and listened to stories about the mass evictions decreed in 1861 by Anglo-Irish landowner Captain John George Adair. In November 1874, he completed his indenture and returned home.[7]

In May 1875, Micí and his mother returned to the Letterkenny hiring fair. After spending the night in a ceilidh house and hearing a story he would always remember,[8] Micí was hired out to an Ulster Scots farmer from Drumoghill, where he lived until November.[9]

Legacy

A bronze sculpture, The Hiring Fair, by artist Maurice Harron is inspired in part by the book.[10] In 2002, his "St. Patrick’s Day in the Klondike" was read in Irish, Welsh, and English at Cardiff, for the St. Patrick's Day Ceremony of Remembrance and Reflection, at the Wales National Great Famine Memorial, Cathays Cemetery.[11] A culture night was held at his house, near Magheraroarty, in September 2013.[12]

References
  1. "Mici Mac Gabhann (1865 - 1948): Gold prospector". The Dictionary of Ulster Biography. 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-24.
  2. Micheal MacGowan, The Hard Road to Klondike, Routledge and Kegan Paul Limited, 1962. ISBN 9781848899643
  3. MacGowan (1962), page 2.
  4. MacGowan (1962), pages 5-10.
  5. MacGowan (1962), pages 10-12.
  6. MacGowan (1962), pages 14-18.
  7. MacGowan (1962), pages 17-23.
  8. MacGowan (1962), pages 24-26.
  9. MacGowan (1962), pages 26-33.
  10. "Hiring Fair". Ask About Ireland. Retrieved 2013-11-24.
  11. "Cardiff, Sunday 17 March, 2002 – St. Patrick's Day: Ceremony of Remembrance and Reflection". Retrieved 2013-11-24.
  12. ""Heritage of an Emigrant's Home" event in Magheroarty". Donegal Democrat. 2013-09-19. Retrieved 2013-11-24.
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