The books I have written so far celebrate the place where I live – the home of my ancestors: Inishowen.
I have researched its castles, its place-names, its surnames and personal names; I have crafted a portrait of an Inishowen town – Buncrana – from the time of the famine to the 1960s. It’s a piece of social archaeology.
Lately, I have created a work that isn’t specifically about Inishowen but nevertheless may be of interest to the music-lovers of the peninsula, certainly to the rest of the nation – a book called “Sunlight & Shadow” about our forgotten composers.
The above clip is taken from a documentary called “Roots of a Man” (2005) made by young Toronto film-makers Matthew & Jeffery Campagna whose Inishowen ancestry (Ó Dochartaigh) led them to the peninsula in search of the their roots. Seoirse accompanied them during the making of it. He is sitting here in the dungeon of Castle Ross on Inch, one of the remaining Ó Dochartaigh strongholds, perched dramatically on a cliff on the southern shores of the island. The full story of their journey is available at www.rootsof a man.com
Most recent publication (2021)
The book is now in all good bookshops all over Ireland, including Mac’s in Buncrana and Supervalu in Carndonagh. It can also be purchased on-line through the Red Stripe Press web-site.
Know Your Place Review
This clip was filmed in the Gaeltacht of Teileann in south Donegal as part of a special feature on “Ardán” on TG4 in 1998.