The Old Man on the Mountain: The Seeds of My Historic Novel 45 Years Ago
On a summer evening in 1981, Nan McGovern, my Irish mother-in-law, took me up a mountain near her home in northwest County Cavan to meet an old man who lived alone beside an open hearth in a cottage without electricity. That was the way it was with some of the older generation in those days. When electricity arrived in the valley in the 1950s, some of the hardier folks who had lived without it all their lives refused to have the electric installed. "Sure what would I want with the likes of that?" they'd reply when offered the prospect that electricity would power such modern amenities as lighting at the flip of a switch or even a refrigerator. And so Charlie Maguire, well into his eighties by then, lived out his days and evenings as he always had, by the light and warmth of the hearth, with the aid of an odd oil lamp when the sun set at the end of the day.
Charlie was known in the region as a seanachie (pronounced "shanakee"), a local storyteller who has "a head full of knowledge about life in the old days," as Nan put it. Stooped over with age, he met us at the door of his stone cottage, greeting us with a delighted smile. "You're very welcome," he said in a wispy voice, strands of white hair lifting in a breeze. As we settled in beside the turf fire, Charlie began to talk of days gone by. He captivated us with tales passed down from generation to generation in the oral tradition of the region. He shared accounts of a former village nearby that pre-dated the devastating potato famine of the 1840s and noted that an old gruel pot once used to feed the starving masses in those days was still to be found in the vicinity.
Then Charlie related tales of a local folk hero in the region who attacked landlords and the English authorities for oppressing the native Irish early in the 18th century. Dick Souple (the local pronunciation of "supple") Corrigan was a highwayman whose gang robbed from the rich and sometimes shared their plunder with the poor. Souple Corrigan is remembered in legend in the region to this day.
In Tobar in the Gloaming, my historical novel, I have envisioned my protagonist as the great-grandson, on his mother's side, of Souple Corrigan. In 1846, Michael Sheridan is a feisty young man raised on tales of English oppression. As he witnesses his neighbors evicted from their cottages during the Famine, he strikes an officer and goes on the run, becoming an outlaw, just like his ancestor a century earlier.
More next time on the book, its background, and its progress.
