Island life
Róise Rua: An Island Memoir is the life story of a woman born in Donegal, but who moved to Arranmore, off the northwest coast, as a young child: Pádraig Ua Cnáimhsí, a teacher who knew her in later life, set her life story down in Irish and won an Oireachtas medal as a result.
This English translation, by the late JJ Keaveny, is an account of a tough life, with seasonal labouring in Scotland central to the economic survival of many Donegal families: Róise Rua’s account of hiring fairs in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket, below the castle, is in contrast to the experience of thousands of Irish on city breaks today in the ‘Athens of the North’.
