Series 8 - Micí Mac Gabhann/Michael MacGowan memoir

470pp

Materials relating to the memoir of Micí Mac Gabhann/Michael MacGowan, born 1865 in west Donegal as one of 12 children of Irish-speaking peasants. He emigrated in 1885, working in the mining industry in Montana and the Yukon, and returned to Donegal in 1901. This memoir began in the 1940s as Mac Gabhann/MacGowan's oral history, as told in Irish to, and transcribed in Irish by, Seán Ó hEochaidh, a collector for the Irish Folklore Commission and, eventually, MacGowan's son-in-law. It was edited extensively for Raidio Éireann and for publication in Irish by Proinsias Ó Conluain, and published in 1959 as Rotha Mór an tSaoil. MacGowan died on 29 November 1948. Ó hEochaidh's preface does not mention the location of his "original" manuscript transcription.
Per Kerby A. Miller: 'This is a wonderful memoir... ...Representivity is not a major issue. A very large minority of post-Famine Irish emigrants to Britain and urban-industrial America were western Irish-speakers, mostly unskilled laborers and domestic servants, and many of the males were concentrated in mining centers, such as Butte, Montana, about whom much data exist. Of course, relatively few went to the Klondike and even fewer got rich and returned, as did MacGowan, but in most respects his life-story is quite typical of his class and cultural group. Life coverage: All phases of Irish immigrant experience are extremely well covered: life in Ireland; migration to Scotland; the decision and processes of emigration to America; occupations, social, cultural, and religious life in urban-industrial America: descriptions and reflections and evaluations of all these aspects of MacGowan's life are eloquently and convincingly presented.'
The series consists of: a copy of the English-language version of the memoir [MacGowan, Michael (1962). The Hard Road to Klondike. London/Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul] with annotations from Miller written in the margins; Miller's descriptive notes on Mac Gabhann/MacGowan; Miller's transcript of the 1962 English-language version of the memoir; and a photocopy of the 1996 Irish-language reprint [Mac Gabhann, Micí (1996). Rotha Mór an tSaoil. Indreabhán: Cló Iar-Chonnachta.]