The Last of the Name. Edited and with an Introduction by Brian Friel. Illustrated by Ciaran Hughes. Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1986. First Edition. Red cloth boards, title in gilt to spine. A fine bright copy. Housed in collector’s solander box.

Inscribed by Brian Freil & Seamus Heaney on the title page.

The memoir of Charles McGlinchey (1861-1954), a weaver and tailor from the remote parish of Meentiagh Glen on the Inishowen peninsula in County Donegal. Containing stories of local customs, “cures and spells, highwaymen and landlords,” as well as poems recited in Irish and English.

Patrick Kavanagh, the local school headmaster, transcribed McGlinchey’s reminiscences during conversations in the late 1940s. The renowned playwright, Brian Friel, received the manuscript decades later from Kavanagh’s son and edited it into its published form, also providing an introduction.

Friel describes McGlinchey as a “Janus figure” who faced both the past and the future, observing the transition of his community from a Gaelic past and old Christian traditions to the modern world.