Book Collector

The following piece is contributed by Donegal historian and author, Seán Beattie (on right in photo). He was a teacher and counsellor at Carndonagh Community School. To the left in photo is Nobel Prize winner, John Hume. Seán certainly ranks among distinguished colleagues...he went to school with another Nobel Prize winner, Seamus Heaney!

I first started collecting books when I was a student, holding on to my textbooks rather than selling them. As a student in the 1960s in UCD, I had ample opportunity to add to my collection by paying regular visits to the numerous bookshops along the quays, now no more, where thousands of second-hand books were on open display under awnings. My preference was for history books from an early stage and I still have a copy of my first purchase, David Hume’s History of England, published in 1831, which cost the princely sum of one shilling. Slowly, I found my attention turning to Irish history and local publications, which at that time were few in number. Harry Swan lived in Buncrana and was one of a small number of historians writing about local history. I recall buying his Romantic Inishowen for ten shillings and since then I have built up a collection of his entire output. For many years, I searched for the histories of local landlord families such as the Youngs, the Harveys and the Harts and have only recently, after many years searching, succeeded in getting all three.

In 1966, my reading interests took a different turn. A book of poetry caught my attention, called Death of a Naturalist, which had glowing reviews in the press. The poet was Seamus Heaney, whom I had known as a fellow student in St. Columb’s College in Derry. Heaney had a brother in the school and he was in my class, so I knew the family well. I found I could identify with some of the poems, particularly “Mid-term Break”, which is set against the background of the college. Heaney described how he sat all day in the sick-bay in the school waiting for his parents to come and bring him home for the funeral of his little brother who had been killed in a car accident. Since that first publication, I have been buying and reading Heaney’s books of poetry as they appeared, including his most recent, Human Chain. Heaney is now a major player in the world of international literature and it is difficult to keep track of his work, much of which is published abroad.

Other Irish writers that have caught my attention are John McGahern and Jennifer Johnson, both of whom I have met several times. McGahern has passed on but Jennifer is still hard at work.

I have always had an interest in French literature since my time in UCD. Two of my favourite authors are Merimée and Balzac. Prosper Merimée wrote Colomba, a story of treachery and savagery set in Corsica. Honoré de Balzac’s La Cousine Bette is his best known novel and superbly portrays the decadence of mid-nineteenth century Paris. But the most interesting of all is Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes (The Lost Domain), with its narrative of magic, realism, and beauty. He wrote only one novel and lost his life in 1914 at the age of 27. One wonders what might have been had he got a better throw of the dice.

A seventeenth century writer, Francis Bacon, said that some books are to be chewed and digested. I disagree. I prefer to read and collect them.

Seán Beattie, Culdaff, 2010 (http://www.historyofdonegal.com)