Glenties features in much of Brian Friel’s writing. His mother was a native of the place and was a member if the McLoone family, consisting of five daughters and two sons, who lived adjacent to the railway station. Brian, an only son, and his two sisters spent almost all of their school holidays at their grandparent’s home in Glenties.

It was fitting therefore that the theme of the 1991 Patrick MacGill summer school in Glenties should have been his work, and fitting too that on the opening night of the school Brian should have, in his address before the presentation of his masterpiece “Dancing at Lughnasa”, marked that he was proud that his extraordinary happening was taking place in the county which he called home. This memorable one night only performance was staged by the abbey theatre players in the local comprehensive school about 200 yards from this living legend’s grandparents home and was unique in so far as the players traveled specially from London for it. The widely world acclaimed play is special to the people of Glenties because the star-studded abbey company performed something which had characters who were well known and remembered as people who lived there.

Brian Friel dedicated the play to as he himself wrote “The Five Glenties Ladies” and those were his four aunts and his mother. The play itself, which was proved to be his most successful revolved around the lifestyle of those who knew them lived ties and those who knew them lived through an almost unbelievable emotional experience on that might in Glenties and are grateful to the author for using his influence in getting the abbey cast.

The death took place of Columba McDyer, a member of the Cavan team which defeated Kerry in the 1947 All-Ireland football final in the Polo Grounds, New York.

A native of Glenties, Co. Donegal, McDyer was on the first Ulster team to win the Railway Cup in 1942 and also played in the same competition with Connacht.

His travels took him to Cavan in 1947 where he was a valuable member of the attack which defeated Kerry by 2-11 to 2-7, scoring a point in the final. Following his success with Cavan he returned to Donegal and his native Glenties where he coached the Donegal senior team for a number of years.

While in Cavan he worked as a carpenter with Elliotts, Church St. but in later years on his return to Donegal he took up a teaching career in Vocational schools in Donegal teaching carpentry.
Aged 80, the funeral takes place in Glenties today (Thursday).

He is survived by his wife, Peggy, sons, Paddy, Alec, James, Columba and Dan and daughters, Ena, Peggy, Deirdre, Patricia, Annie, Breege and Paula.

In a tribute to Columba McDyer, former Cavan star of the forties and fifties, Mick Higgins who played with him in that great All-Ireland year of ’47 said there was no yellow or red cards needed when Columba was playing.

“He was a gentleman on and off the field and was fortunate to have a midfield partner in Phil “Gunner”Brady who looked after anything that was needed to be looked after.
“I played against him when he was playing for Donegal. He came to Cavan at a time when we were having centre-field problems.

We found him to be an outstanding player and he solved our problems in this area of the field in partnership with Phil Brady.

“He was a great athlete with wonderful fielding. His chief asset, at least I felt, was his fetching. He was a fine fielder of a ball and never relied on punching, he always caught it.
“Columba was a genius too to launch an attack.

He didn’t play defensive football as was commonly understood and he always managed to get scores at vital periods.

Mick described Columba as quiet and unassuming. “You wouldn’t know he was on the pitch. He was a real gentleman on and off the field.

“He never resorted to rough play and was always skilful and naturally fit throughout his life. We used to train only for finals at that time and he would always be supremely fit. He had a tremendous attitude overall.

There are only five survivors from that ‘47 final – Mick Higgins, Tony Tighe, John Wilson, Peter Donohoe and Simon Deignan.

The following piece was written by Columba McDyer prior to Donegal’s victorious appearance in the 1992 All-Ireland final:-

As a link with the past and this year of historic success with the present record-breaking Donegal Senior GAA team, I have been asked to put on record, as a Donegal born All-Ireland senior medal holder – albeit with Cavan – my memories of that famous win in the Polo Grounds in New York in 1947.
Like everyone else, I am a very hopeful and aspirant spectator waiting cautiously and patiently to see our long overdue quota of 21 “Carruth” Gold (apologies to Olympic hero) medals coming to our illustrious Tyrconnell.

We all know and feel within ourselves what this will mean to us, and our faithful and popular scribe “The Follower” will, I am sure, adequately and fittingly describe this momentous sporting occasion, and I look forward to his contribution.

As for myself, I feel there will have to be some rumblings emitting from the distant past denizens of the Grianan of Aileach, recording their uncontainable approval.

However, to get back to what I was asked to do – to put on record a summary of my memories and experiences of the 1947 All-Ireland Senior football final at the Polo Grounds, New York, as a participant with the victorious Cavan team of that day.

I begin at the beginning – interrupting my honeymoon, saying farewell to my understanding wife, Peggy (music, Stand By Your Man) and joining up with my playing colleagues to motor from Ballyjamesduff to Shannon Airport (then Rineanna) and after a long delay and dispute with air pilots of T.W.A. plane, “The Moulmein Pakoda”, about luggage weight excess, we finally headed off for New York, landing first at the Azores and then on to Gander Airport, Newfoundland.

There we were served tea and muffins with maple syrup; reboarded the plane only to be told that one engine was not functioning correctly. Back to the airport for a long delay while the plane was being serviced; re-boarded again and on to Boston where we were all allowed off the plane to meet the Kennedy family and friends who were there to greet us. Finally, on to our destination at New York, where a bus awaited us to take us to our respective hotels.

Our hotel was “Hotel Empire” beside Times Square and a bus was laid on attached to the hotel for our collective activities.

I remember the many meetings with callers and friends; the difficulty to get a peaceful period for rest before the game.

I recall that the game itself was a very close encounter, and I do remember Kerry’s whirlwind start, and our shaky one, but gradually our team pulled out and got control and eventually we won by four points.
I remember the excitement after – moving out of the Stadium to where our bus awaited us. The attendance at the game was about 44,000 but there were twenty or thirty thousand more outside who couldn’t get in, and mounted police had to clear a way for the bus to get going.

I remember after the match meeting my friend, John Joe Campbell of Ardara, who came rushing to me on the field to congratulate me.

We had a series of luncheon engagements then where many important celebrities of the day attended, including a special function laid on by Co. Mayo born Bill O’Dwyer, then Mayor of New York. I still feel the excitement of the ticker tape cavalcade through New York City where all traffic was brought to a standstill and where we were paraded for miles in police vehicles, through lined streets, again courtesy of Mayor O’Dwyer, who also arranged for us to visit the Precincts of some Police Department to view the call up of criminals and crimes of the night as various police handed over their unfortunate arrested clientele.

The Mayor also arranged a special police car cavalcade for teams and officials for a visit to “West Point” Military Academy and a viewing of the spectacle of the lowering of the flag there at eventide, with a special meal laid on for us at the famous “Bear Mountain Inn.”

I also remember a visit and an interview with the German manager of “Schaefers”, the world famous brewery – one of the actual owners – who arranged with his Burtonport publicity advertising agent in USA a team visit to his New York Brewery. He was at the game and was very impressed. He presented each player present at the Brewery visit with a beautiful commemoration book and medal struck specially for some big centenary occasion worldwide for the brewery.

He was also interested in engaging the teams for exhibition matches throughout the States at his firm’s expense – a type of sponsorship job, you could say, but this was not possible.

A second game also took place in New York where a mixture of the Cavan and Kerry teams played an American selection. We were altogether three weeks on American soil and it was a hectic time. I remember a visit with one of my friends to a film in one of the big cinemas where a “Grantland Rice” special feature of the All-Ireland was shown and it was lengthy, very well done and much better than the record I have seen in Ireland of the filmed game. I haven’t met anyone else who has seen this feature.

The highlight of the journey home on the Cunard Liner, “the Queen Mary” to Southampton was a special meal for our party where the Captain entertained us with a banquet and where he issued special menus in Irish for the two teams with the names of all the players in Irish and decorated with Cavan and Kerry colours. I have my copy of the menu still.

From Southampton we travelled by rail to London, stayed one night, then on to Holyhead by rail, and back by boat to Dun Laoghaire on the then “Princess Maud” boat.

We were there joined by friends and well wishers and proceeded to a function and dinner in the Gresham in Dublin.

I conclude with thanks for patience and my good luck and good wishes to Donegal team and management for the history of the century, in our sporting life.

Unusually for the small townships of West Donegal, Glenties has both a Market House and a Court House. The former seems to have been built about 1840 for the Marquis of Conyngham. It is a long low gabled two-storey building with two separate outside stairways giving access to the upper floor: today used as youth club, recreation room, stores and garage. In the lower storey, there is a single wide segmental arc and on either side an arched doorway: windows have been added rather miscellaneously from time to time. The quoins and dressings are of cut stone, as are the chimneys, otherwise the building is of random rubble harled over. Rather oddly, but endearingly, the upper walls are set back all round on the base furnished by the lower storey and stringcourse. The eaves of the Sables have cheerful little carved wooden brackets.

The courthouse is surprisingly sophisticated. It is a variant on William Caldbeck’s standard design, of five bays and two storeys, with hipped roof, built over a basement containing the bride well cells. The two end bays project, and the roof over sails the central bays. In the upper storey are five large round-headed windows, set in recesses and plain round-headed architraves, with their original glazing; the doors are set between simplified pilasters supporting pediment-shaped heads. The eaves have square modillions; the imposing chimneys form an integral part of the composition. The quality of the stonework is uncommonly high throughout. The original courtroom furnishings, including high box-pews, remain quite unaltered.

This building was the cause of acrimony between the Grand Jury and the Lord Lieutenant. The Grand Jury considered it “unnecessary and inexpedient” in view of the propinquity of the new courthouse at Donegal; His Excellency differed, and directed them to build it, at a cost of £900. This sum they resolutely refused to vote, on the advice of their Surveyor, who suggested that £650 would be more than adequate. After an exchange of stiff memoranda and resolutions the Grand Jury was constrained, with very poor grace, to give way. The building was in fact completed in 1843.

The Grand Jurymen of Co. Donegal were as parsimonious as they were stiff- necked. At the height of the Great Famine, they noted that Lifford Gaol (built for 113) was overcrowded by an additional 87 prisoners; to remedy this inconvenience and to discourage those who might commit offences in order to be fed in prison, they solemnly recommended to Government that the statutory minimum diet in the prison be reduced to accord with the current diet outside.

The following is an account of Glenties Harvest Fair written and published in 1972 by the late Joe Campbell, Glenties.

In my young days and that’s not today or yesterday the Harvest Fair Day was a red-letter day in the history of the town. It was looked forward to by young and old for weeks before and remembered by many a long day afterwards. In fact, in those days it was a three-day event. First there was “the gathering” the day before; then there was the big day itself and then there was “the scattering” the following day.

It was a landmark for farmers for miles around. Any farmer who hadn’t his hay stacked and his corn safely in the haggard was considered, if he was single, a poor match for any girl. If he was married and had a family he saw to it by threats and promises that the above work was completed by the time the Big Day came round. How well I remember as a boy working by moonlight to get the last of the corn in so as to be free to attend the fair, with just a white sixpence in my pocket!

Those were the days – God be with them – when the train was the chief means of transport and the day before the fair the C.D.R. ran two special trains into Glenties, each engine dragging leisurely along long strips of empty, wagons to bring to Derry the following day for shipment to Glasgow and other Clyde ports the cattle and sheep bought at the fair.

In addition to the trains all kinds of vans and other vehicles – horse-drawn of course – could he seen wending their way slowly but surely along the country roads leading to the centre of attractions. These brought in the gamblers – “the three card trick” men, the “fire-eaters”, and hosts of others, as well as the vendors of all kinds of merchandise including green gooseberries, greener apples, currant buns, lemonade, and of course, second-hand clothing, for which there was a big demand in those days.
As each one arrived he immediately selected his “stand” by the sidewalk for the following day and marked it with a long wooden spar, or by parking his van there, and God help the individual who dare try to take possession of a spot thus marked. Each one then took himself off to “the Rock” to book in for the night in one or other of the three well-known boarding houses that were there.

The evening before would be active too, the sheep farmers from the Fintown area, from Shallogans, from the top of the Glen, and of course from the Croaghs. From The latter place would come the McLoone family-those five brothers, Eoin Mhicheails -with their huge flocks of mountain wethers, with their well trained dogs that could almost speak to you in Gaelic – like their masters, they knew no other language – and they always “penned” their sheep for the night in Hughie Mhor’s field at head the of the town (now Ard Connell) which field they had always rented in advance for the occasion. The other farmers got similar accommodation for their flocks in fields convenient to the town where they could easily collect them at daybreak next morning. They then wended their way homewards, to return again before cock-crow the following day with huge bundles of “braidins” – handmade grass ropes – with which to tie their sheep one to another down along the wall on the “Chapel Brae” along the wall of the R.I.C. barracks, or along the Market House.

And what about the cattle men? They would arrive, too at daybreak, and before, with their droves of well-fed cattle but the best of these were brought in by the landlord’s men from Downstrands who had fattened their cattle on the rich grasslands of Inniskeel Island or on Major Porter’s Roshine. These huge glossy animals were “beef” to the heel like a “Mullingar heifer” and would fetch anything up to £15 a head -a huge price in those days! The cattle were on display on the “Rock”, which was then and still is, known as the “Cow – Market”.

Around 8.00am business was in full swing, and what a din. The lowing of cattle, the bleating of sheep, the barking of dogs, the neighing of horses, the grunting and squealing of pigs, but above all, the shouting of drovers and the “bualadh Bhos” of the buyers and sellers trying to strike a bargain.
“How much for the “oul mincher”", one dealer would ask
“Go along ye bligard” would come the quick reply. “How dar’ ye call my two – year – oul springing heifer an oul mincher.”
“She hasn’t a tooth in her head”, would come the retort.
“Faith, then ye haven’t so many in yer own gob”, would come the reply.
And so it went on until around noon when all bargains were finished and buyers and sellers made their way to the main street and to one or other of the dozen odd pubs then in the town to settle their accounts and to squabble still further over the “lucky- penny” that each dealer had to receive before a bargain was complete.

And then the “fun of the fair”. The buyers and sellers were now joined by hundreds of young boys and girls from near and far who got the day off in return for many a hard day’s work in the harvest fields during the previous months. The young people sauntered up and down the street in groups, the girls by themselves and the boys by themselves, and many a shy smile exchanged as they passed and re-passed in their, to the inexperienced onlooker, aimless wandering. But was it aimless? Well many a courtship started at the Harvest Fair and ended in a happy marriage before that day came round again!

And what about the street vendors, the “three-card-trick” men, and the “trick of the loop” men? As the crowds gathered and the people began crowding round them, these became more vociferous and could be heard all over the town, each one trying to out-shout and outsmart his nearest rival in an attempt to attract as many patrons as possible. But the wee man from Ballybofey that had the second hand clothes stall was always the centre of attraction,
“What will ye bid me for the wee pair of pants, ma’am, made from the best King’s corduroy? (Although Victoria, of pious and immortal memory, ruled at that time!) Here they are to ye – Slapping them with his palm – 3/6? 3/-? Ah, give me half-a-crown. Will ye no’ bid me atal? What will ye do with wee Johnny when he’s’ ready for school? Blacken his “behind” (nothing so polite as that!) and send him out Barenaked?”
Above the din sometimes could he beard the sound of music. Never to miss a Harvest Fair was big Hughie Gallagher, the most famous of all the pipers in Donegal, Sligo or Leitrim. And there was Mickie (I’ve forgotten his last surname), the blindBall the way down from Castlederg. Mickie sang all the latest “come-all-ye’s” to his own accompaniment on the fiddle. I can still bear him sing “Killester Fair” in his own inimitable style. And then of course, there was Neddie Bab and his tin whistle being followed up and down the street by all the children in the town. But as the melody-makers visited the various pubs in the course of the day shriller because the singing and more discordant the music.

But then coming on to “closing time” the R.I.C. strongly reinforced for the day, began moving out in pairs from the barracks and marched up and down the street in their best military style, their black leather – cased batons dangling from their belts. This was the signal for the publicans to get their premises cleared and soon would happy, semi-mebriated (and not so semi!) burst onto the street gangs of boisterious men. (Women did not frequent pubs in those days!) Sometimes a row would start and the sticks would be raised and the crowds would surge from either end of the street to the scene of action to be told gruffly by the nearest constable to “get moving”. And move they did, many of them arriving home by midnight, foot-sore, tired and hungry at the end of a perfect day, and peace and quiet returned once more to the one-time hilarious village.

The fair was now over but was it? I said at the beginning that it lasted for three days, and so it did. Next day if approaching the town from the Fintown side one could meet droves of cattle being driven “on
their on the hoof” by the same noisy drovers of the day before, either heading for the Stranorlar station or over Meenaroy to the Swilly station at Letterkenny. These were animals that could not he accommodated by the C.D.P.- the day before on their two special trains and were in the hope of reaching Derry before the cattle boat sailed.

And on reaching the town there was still a great deal of hustle and bustle. The hawkers and vendors of green apples of the previous day were rushing about packing up their wares and yoking their piebald ponies to their spring – vans in preparation for the journey home or to some other venue where another fair would soon be in progress, while out from O’Donnell’s yard came Hughie the Piper and out from Phelan’s arch came the blind fiddler from Castlederg each of them rubbing his eyes and feeling his trousers pockets gingerly and wondering was there enough to get him “a hair of the dog” that bit him so viciously the day before!

These are my recollections of the Glenties Harvest Fair of three score years or more.