Life
fl.1845; putative author of Famine Diary, Journey to the New World
(1895; 1982, &c.), ‘edited’ by Br. James J. Mangan, reputedly
a descendent of J. C. Mangan; became a best-seller on the Wolfhound list
in the 1991 Edn.
Works
Gerald Keegan, Famine Diary, Journey to the New World (Quebec,
1895; 1982; Wolfhound rep. 1990), first appeared in Quebec, 1982, as The
Voyage of Naparima, a Story of Canada’s Island Graveyard, ed.
Brother James J. Mangan, De La Salle.
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Notes
Famine Diary is actually based on the short story ‘The Summer of
Sorrow,’ by Robert Sellar, a Scottish-born immigrant who founded
The Gleaner, an English-language newspaper, at Huntingdon and published
his own stories in it (later collected as Gleaner Tales (1895;
2nd edn. 1918). Sellar was an Orangeman; died in 1918; known for his polemical
works such as The Papal Menace and Home Rule, Ulster
and Quebec: An Ominous Parallel. The Summer of Sorrow is divided
into three parts, "Seeking for the Book"; "How the Book
was Got", and "The Journal of Gerald O"Connor". In
Mangan’s narrative the emigrant ship is renamed. Keegan also spends
time in Connaught witnessing the general effects of the Famine giving
occasion to indict the landlords. [Details from unrecorded source.]
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)