![]() | Donall MacAmhlaigh Dónall Peadar Mac Amhlaigh (10 December 1926 – 27 January 1989) was an Irish writer. He was born on the Cappagh Road between Galway and the nearby village of Bearna and in 1940 moved with his family to Kilkenny. He left school at 15 to go out to work in a woollen mill and later on farms and in hotels in the West of Ireland. In 1947 he joined the Irish-speaking regiment of the Irish Army. When he left it in 1951 he faced the prospect of unemployment in Ireland. He travelled to England to work as an unskilled labourer. He later became a writer, producing a number of novels and short stories as well as social history. He was also a prolific journalist. As a committed socialist, he contributed regularly to newspapers and journals in Ireland and England throughout the 1970s and 1980s., Although not a native speaker, he wrote extensively in the Irish language. His first book was Dialann Deoraí, an account of his life as a building worker in England. It was an immediate best-seller and was published in an English translation by the poet Valentin Iremonger (An Irish Navvy: The Diary of an Exile, 1964). |
Donall MacAmhlaigh kept a diary as he worked the sites, danced in Irish halls, drank in Irish pubs and lived the life of the roving Irish navvy. ...Quick View
This book is a vivid picture of an Irish navvy's life in the England of the 1950s. Workless days, the hardships of work camps, lonesome partings after trips home, periods of intense isolation and occasional bitterness we ...Quick View
This book is a vivid picture of an Irish navvy's life in the England of the 1950s. Workless days, the hardships of work camps, lonesome partings after trips home, periods of intense isolation and occasional bitterness we ...Quick View
This vivid picture of an Irish navvy's life in England in the 1950s mirrors that of an entire generation who left Ireland without education or hope. Days without food or work, the hardships of work camps, lonesome partin ...Quick View
Information from Publishers is pending. ...Quick View
Information from Publishers is pending. ...Quick View
An Irish Navvy - The Diary of an Exile
By: Donall MacAmhlaigh , Valentin Iremonger
28 Feb 2003 - The Collins Press
This book is a vivid picture of an Irish navvy's life in the England of the 1950s. Workless days, the hardships of work camps, lonesome partings after trips home, periods of intense isolation and occasional bitterness we ...Quick View
This vivid picture of an Irish navvy's life in England in the 1950s mirrors that of an entire generation who left Ireland without education or hope. Days without food or work, the hardships of work camps, lonesome partin ...Quick View