Series 2 - Charles J. McGuinness memoir

78pp

Citation for a published source: McGuinness, Charles John (1935). Sailor of Fortune: Adventures of an Irish Sailor, Soldier, Pirate Pearl-Fisher, Gun-Runner, Rebel and Antarctic Explorer. Philadelphia: Macrae Smith Co.

Materials pertaining to Charles John McGuinness, including his 1935 memoir. McGuinnes was born in 1893 in Derry and left home in 1910, thus beginning a life of travel and exploration. McGuinness periodically returned to Ireland, including around the War of Independence during which he served as an officer in the IRA. McGuinness's extensive travels are recounted in his memoir and he is believed to have drowned at sea in 1947. Per Professor Kerby A. Miller: 'It's difficult to say that McGuinness ever ""emigrated"" in the normal sense of the term; rather, he ran away from home c.1910 and spent the next two or three decades, at least, going from one ship, and one adventure to another, in numerous countries, usually stopping in New York or another US port only long enough to recuperate and find another ship. After the Irish Civil War, McGuinness came to the US and spent some time in a construction job in the New York City area. Then he participated in Admiral Richard Byrd's first Antarctic expedition of 1928-30. After returning from Antarctica, he remained in the US for a year or two and supported himself by engaging in smuggling liquor from St. Pierre to Long Island during Prohibition. His memoir ends with his ""retirement"" from that occupation and his departure for the USSR. By 1935, he was back in Dublin, but we aren't told how or why or when he left the USSR. Written: in the early 1930s, after his retirement from rum-running but before his departure for the USSR. However, after he returned from Russia, he may have revised his ms. in Dublin before it was published in Philadelphia in 1935.'
The series includes: a published copy of McGuinness's 1935 memoir, Sailor of Fortune: Adventures of an Irish Sailor, Soldier, Pirate Pearl-Fisher, Gun-Runner, Rebel and Antarctic Explorer.; Miller's typescript version of the Preface for and Chapter 25 of Sailor of Fortune, along with various photocopied sections of the text; a photocopy of McGuinness's birth certificate and World War I enlistment papers; photocopied pictures of McGuinness; secondary source research citations; Miller's research notes.