By Éamon Ó Caoineachán
Bundoran’s long-lost guidebook, Revd T.C. Connolly’s Bundoran and its neighbourhood (1895), has been found. Its well-travelled pages, which circumnavigate around one of Ireland’s most historically famous seaside resorts and watering-places, finally returns into the hands of ‘Bundoranese’ and Irish readers. The guide and its author, T.C. Connolly, take the reader on an epic, picturesque journey that is encapsulated on its title-page: ‘a guide and descriptive handbook to Bundoran and the surrounding district of the Northwest, including Enniskillen, Sligo, Donegal &c. Illustrated’.
Ballyshannon historian Anthony Begley believes that Connolly’s book ‘is more than just a guidebook’ since it ‘seamlessly covers a wide range of areas and topics’. These areas stretch from the western shores of the Erne estuary to the eastern castellated edges of Enniskillen Castle, and from the southern slopes of the Dartry Mountains to the northern keep of Donegal Castle. Every adventuring chapter ‘represents one day’s tour from Bundoran’. Connolly’s Prefatory Note outlines the layout of the topics covered: ‘At the head of each chapter are given directions as to how best to see the particular locality—noting distances, time, means of transit, &c.’. These guiding recommendations create a revolving signpost for each chapter that ‘describes briefly what to see; noting all objects of natural beauty, social, or historical interest’. In addition, there is a selection of appended notes on ‘objects of archaeological and historical interest situated in or associated with the locality’ and an Appendix that arranges local information for antiquarians, anglers, cyclists, botanists, geologists and zoologists.
The author, Terence Connolly, was a native of Kinlough parish. He was baptised on 5 March 1864, the son of Daniel Connolly and Margaret Clancy. A borderland child from the townland of Buckode, he lived a skipping stone’s throw from the historic River Drowes, which streams from the western shores of Lough Melvin along the Donegal–Leitrim border. During Connolly’s time as a travelling Catholic curate, he turned to writing the guidebook. His motivation is clearly articulated in his Prefatory Note, namely that ‘A large and not the least interesting portion of this district has been practically unnoticed by preceding guide-writers’.
The late Donegal historian Fr Paddy Gallagher, a Bundoran native, states in his book Where Erne and Drowes meet the sea that Connolly’s guidebook was out of print in 1961. Fr Gallagher claims that Connolly’s book is ‘still the best of the local guide-books’. This claim gains credibility from at least two supporting sources that reviewed the guidebook in 1895: the New Ireland Review and the Irish Monthly. The general critical consensus classifies Connolly’s book as one of the best local guidebooks from the nineteenth century and demonstrate that it possesses literary, historical and geographical significance.
The New Ireland Review proclaims that ‘The author of a good guide-book is an estimable contributor to literature’. The reviewer notes that Connolly describes ‘accurately and pleasantly the scenes to which he introduces the tourist’ and that his guidebook ‘will be popular through many seasons’. The guidebook’s popularity was sure to ‘charm and instruct a larger circle of readers than many more ambitious authors’. Ultimately, the reviewer judges that Connolly ‘belongs to this deserving class of writers’.
A striking feature of Connolly’s writing is his ability to skilfully distil information succinctly and to write ‘In a very clear and lively style’. This intellectual gift is recognised by the Irish Monthly: ‘It is wonderful what an amount of information T.C.C.—whoever he may be—has contrived to crush into 150 pages, aided by skilful changes of type and all the resources of the printer’s art’. Connolly’s brevity is impressive and his source-finding techniques are applauded by the reviewer, who notes approvingly that the author ‘has shown very great industry in gathering his materials from all possible sources, and great literary skill in arranging and condensing’. Moreover, there is also praise for the guidebook’s visual curation by Dublin-based publisher Sealy, Bryers & Walker: ‘The illustrations are very good and very well printed; and altogether this is an excellent shilling’s worth’. Overall, the reviewer summarises that ‘Very exact particulars are given of time and distance, and how to crush most into one day’ when travelling from Bundoran into its neighbourhood.
Connolly’s long-lost guidebook is an important discovery for readers and scholars of Donegal, north-west and Irish history. It is the first original guidebook to Bundoran and its neighbourhood that historically establishes and promotes the north-west of Ireland as a tourist destination—a unique work of travel literature. Today, Bundoran and its neighbourhood has been digitised and made freely available on its own dedicated website: https://www.bundorananditsneighbourhood.com/.
Éamon Ó Caoineachán is a Donegal poet, writer and historian.