‘I'm absolutely delighted with the reaction to the book in Donegal’

Cathal Póirtéir is a writer and broadcaster who worked for 30 years as a radio producer in RTÉ Radio 1, where he researched and presented a wide range of programmes, many on history and folklore topics.
He edited four books in English and Irish on the famine of the 1840s and 'The Great Irish Famine - Thomas Davis Lectures' was a non-fiction best seller for several months. Mr Porter has lectured on folklore and famine topics in Europe and north America. For several years he has worked as an independent scholar and freelance writer

Q - Where did the idea for your latest book come from?
A - The idea for the book about Lord George Hill and Gaoth Dobhair goes back a few years. In the 1990s I researched the history, literature and folklore of that part of Donegal for a temporary exhibition beside the then newly built An Chúirt hotel.

As Lord George Hill had built the original hotel there in 1842 and had been landlord of half of the parish for forty years from 1837, he was an important part of that story. It was when I came across May, Lou and Cass - Jane Austen's nieces in Ireland by Sophia Hillan several years ago that I started to think about a book that would include Hill's fascinating personal story and the changeable relationship he had with his tenants, particularly the Gweedore Sheep Wars (1865-58) and the propaganda war that went with it that led to a Parliamentary elect Committee Inquiry into Destitution (Gweedore and Cloughaneely) 1858. There was just so much detail available that I knew it would make a great book.

Q - What is your relationship with Donegal?
A - My parents were from Inishowen but moved to Derry where I was brought up. From mid-teens summer meant trips to the Irish College in Rann na Feirste and regular trips to Gaoth Dobhair all through my student days. I also worked for a year in Gaoth Dobhair for a Gaeltacht newspaper in the early 1980s.

Q - What has the reaction been to your book to date?
A - I'm absolutely delighted with the reaction to the book in Donegal and further afield. The people who have reviewed it have been very enthusiastic, praising how easy it is to read and the depth of research that went into it. Those endorsements are important to me coming as they do from people I respect for their own expertise and knowledge of the area and of famine history. I made great efforts to be even-handed about the two sides of the story of landlord-tenant relations and to lay out the facts and opinions in a way that would allow readers to read the full story and to make their own minds up about what sort of landlord Lord George Hill was. In his own time, he was painted by some as an example of what a good landlord could achieve and by others as a tyrant living off the sufferings of his poor tenants. That row has been going on for more than 150 years and I'm sure it will rumble on for another while.

Q - How long did it take you to write this book?
A - I put three or four years into the research and writing of it. That was no great hardship as I really enjoyed researching and discovering the wonderful unpublished and published sources that were available to help me paint a detailed picture of Hill and his family, of Gaoth Dobhair before and during his time as landlord there, and of the people who visited the area during the terrible famine years. There were journalists and other travellers who wrote heart-breaking accounts about the hardships at the time and compared the situation there with neighbouring parishes. I did much of the online work during the pandemic restrictions as there are lots of contemporary publications and documents that can be found including the comments in the Gweedore Hotel visitors' books from 1842 on. When travel and research were easier I visited Hillsborough Castle, then home of the Hill family, the Public Records Office in Belfast, the Royal Irish Academy and the National Folklore Collection in Dublin - and anywhere else I thought I might find previously uncovered evidence of what happened in Gaoth Dobhair during that period.

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Q - How important is this type of work in conserving local history?
A - Local studies and local history are very important in helping us build up a fuller picture of what happened during difficult and turbulent times. No national history or general overview will give much more than a passing reference to a reasonably well-documented parish like Gaoth Dobhair in the mid-nineteenth century. We need good well-researched local studies that get down to the telling detail of events and how they affected people on the ground. Without those in-depth local studies, an accurate overview of what happened will be difficult to put together and our general understanding of the nuances of history the poorer for it.

Q - Has there been much reaction to your book from people in different countries?
A - Not that I've seen yet but it's probably worth saying a few reviewers have made the point that this story is not just of interest to people with Donegal connections but a well-written page-turner with a surprise on every page.

Q - Why should people in Donegal read this book?
A - There is so much to learn about life in nineteenth century Donegal in this book. Sometimes It paints a distressing picture of poverty and hardship but it also shows examples of great kindness, honesty and fortitude among a population under the most severe pressure to survive. It shows how different life was for peasant farmers compared to the well-off visitors to the county during the famine era and how Lord George Hill and other landlords related to their tenants over the period. You will also read how the authorities in Dublin and the parliament in Britain viewed both tenants and landlords in Ireland. The evidence given to the Parliamentary Inquiry in 1858 is a revelation about the disputed social conditions in north-west Donegal at the time.

Q - Should it be taught in schools?
A - I was very conscious when I was writing the book that I wanted it to be read by as wide a readership as possible and I made a special effort to make it as exciting and readable as I possibly could without compromising on historical accuracy.

Q - Why did you write in Irish?
A - There were a couple of reasons. I've always done as much work as I can in Irish because of my own commitment to the language and I felt that Gaoth Dobhair as a Gaeltacht parish deserved to have its history well told in Irish. In more general terms I felt that the wider Irish speaking community would be as taken by the story as I was if it was well written and well-presented and Cló Iar-Chonnacht, the publishers, have done a wonderful job with loads of contemporary photographs and a very attractive layout.