Book Four: Land and Language, 1883 to 1894

The years, 1883 to 1894

Michael Gallagher writes on, an established farmer now with young children of his own. His letters still cross to his cousin in New York, married these years as Brigid Ryan.

The GAA. The Gaelic Athletic Association was founded in Thurles in November 1884 to organise and preserve Irish games. Within a few years a club takes the field in the parish, and match-day becomes a fixture of the letters, a small ordinary joy amid the politics.

Tenants become owners. The Ashbourne Act of 1885 let tenants borrow to buy their holdings outright, the beginning of the end of landlordism. To own the ground your family had worked for generations was a change so large it was hard to believe.

Parnell, and the Gaelic League. Charles Stewart Parnell brought Home Rule within sight, then fell suddenly when the O'Shea divorce case split his party in 1890. His death in October 1891 left the country stunned and divided. Two years later, in 1893, the Gaelic League was founded to revive the Irish language, and talk began of Irish classes for the children.

The family in these years

Michael's letters move between the fields and the wider world: a club taking the field for the first time, his own children born and named, a black-bordered letter when Parnell dies. He writes as a man settled in his place at last, watching his country reach for something larger, and telling it all to a cousin whose children will grow up knowing Ireland only through these pages.

Moments from the twelve letters

• November 1884. News of the GAA's founding reaching Ballycastle, and what a game of their own might mean.
• September 1887. The parish's own club taking the field for the first time.
• October 1891. Parnell's death, written on paper edged in black.
• July 1893. The Gaelic League founded, and the first talk of Irish classes for the children.

Your county in Book Four

The O'Donnells are the Mayo edition. Each county's edition takes the field with its own GAA club and county sides, and argues Parnell and Home Rule from its own ground. See how the county personalisation works.