Michael MacGowan, The Hard Road to Klondike

Abstract

The autobiography of Michael MacGowan (Micí Mac Gabhann) (1865–1948) is one of the most celebrated works of twentieth-century Gaelic literature. Shorn of self-consciousness and animated by the living voice of a story-teller, it presents a seemingly artless account of the author’s migrant experiences in late nineteenth-century Scotland and the United States. Born in Cloghaneely, County Donegal, MacGowan was hired out as a spalpeen (migrant farm labourer) at the age of nine and in 1880 crossed to Scotland, his first impressions of which are chronicled in the following extract. In 1885 he emigrated to America and spent several years working in the silver mines of Montana before setting out to join the Klondike gold rush in 1898, which epic journey is at the heart of the narrative. MacGowan returned to live in Cloghaneely in 1902, marrying and raising a large family there. In the 1940s his life story was recorded and transcribed by his son-in-law, the folklore collector Seán Ó hEochaidh, who was keen to preserve for future social historians the ‘living lore which the story-teller himself had actually experienced’, as he puts it in his preface. The manuscript was subsequently edited by Prionsias Ó Conluain and published as Rotha Mór an tSaoil (‘The Great Wheel of Destiny’). A documentary film based on the book, directed by Desmond Bell, appeared in 1999.

With a preface by Seán Ó hEochaidh (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962). xiii, 150pp.; pp. 39–41. Translated by Valentin Iremonger from Rotha Mór an tSaoil (Conamara: Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 1959).