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6 Donegal 9 August to 20 September 19431 Monday 9.8.43 Bus as far as Castlerea, Co. Roscommon, at four o’clock. I arrived there at 8.30. Meal, pictures and bed. Tuesday 10.8.43 Bus at nine o’clock to Sligo. Arrived there at 12.30. A visit to Máirtín Ó hOisín’s house. Lunch. Bus at four o’clock to Convoy via Bundoran and Donegal. In Convoy at eight o’clock and train2 from there to Letterkenny. Hotel there overnight and nothing to do in that town at night apart from the pictures and it was too late to go to them. Wednesday 11.8.43 Bus from Letterkenny to Gort an Choirce at nine o’clock and arrived at my destination at eleven o’clock. I enquired about Seán Ó hEochaidh and found the house. I walked to it and Seán made me very welcome. We sat down at the table and I was given tea and we talked of work and travel, getting to know one another, when Rodney Greene – Éamon Ó Grianna – walked in. Later on I was brought to the lodging house – Mac Gabhann’s house in An Caiseal – about two miles southwest of Gort an Choirce. We had dinner and I wrote the air to a lullaby that Seán Ó hEochaidh’s grandfather3 had. Éamon and I went swimming three miles from home because it was such a fine evening and we went to the house of Johnny Mac Fhionnlaoich, a schoolteacher. We spent part of the afternoon with him talking about work and other matters. His wife [Eibhlín] is writing plays for the children in Johnny’s school and Johnny is teaching the plays to the pupils at the moment – two nice little plays. Éamon and I stayed awhile looking at them practising and 89 90 Going to the Well for Water we went home to tea at eight o’clock. There is a crowd staying in the house and I brought my papers down to the room in which Seán works in Gort an Choirce to start working. We were writing until ten o’clock and Seán and I walked back to this house again. We talked a while and then everyone went to bed. Thursday 12.8.43 Éamon [Ó Grianna] accompanied me as I was going down to Seán’s ‘office’4 [Ó hEochaidh] this morning. We did some work but started talking and went home to dinner at one o’clock. I went there alone this afternoon and I had done a good deal of work when Éamon arrived again. We started talking and we had a great discussion about the Irish language situation in the Gaeltacht and in the Galltacht.5 As a result, we made Éamon write an account of the entire situation (to keep him quiet) after tea. In the ‘office’ again at 7.30 and Éamon came at ten o’clock and we went for a while to a céilí in the college.6 Friday 13.8.43 Spent the morning in the ‘office’ again and a while after dinner there again until school finished. Then we went out, Seán [Ó hEochaidh] and I, and I met Dinny Boyle, or Donncha Ó Baoill, a schoolteacher who has a wealth of local music. He promised me he would willingly give me his entire repertoire. He introduced me to Tom Kindlon, a schools’ inspector from Dundalk – who has some strange opinions about music and about sean-nós, although he judges sean-nós music competitions. Nevertheless he is a nice person. We had a great discussion about Irish music, both in the future and in the past. I went home to tea at 6.30 and Éamon [Ó Grianna] and I went to visit Niall Ó Dufaigh – the man who has been telling stories for Seán for a long time – because Seán told me he is a musical person. He certainly is. He is a small man, oldish and extremely nice. He would ask for nothing other than to talk, I’d say. He has a very sweet voice and very rich Irish. He brought a group of young boys together here, children, and taught them the whistle and they have now formed a music band in the parish at the moment, but unfortunately he only knows band music and they only play published music. I spent the evening with him until eleven o’clock and...

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