Credit: Derry Guided Tours The story of how one Donegal priest’s resilence helped save his parish will be told in a new documentary airing on TG4 for Easter Sunday.
Actor Stephen Rea narrates ‘Meitheal’, which explores how Gleann Colm Cille became a self-sufficient community with the support of Fr James Canon McDyer. The documentary looks at the parish’s struggle to survive before thriving in the face of harsh economic conditions in 20th Century Ireland.
Gleann Colm Cille (“valley of Colm Cille”) is a coastal district with a sizeable Irish-speaking community in the south-west Gaeltacht of Co. Donegal. The area is an ancient spiritual place named after St Colm Cille, or Columba, who is one of Ireland’s three patron saints – along with St Patrick and St Brigid. Colm Cille and his followers lived in the valley for a time and the ruins of several of their churches can still be seen there today. The district consists of four major religious sites: Glencolumbkille Cashel, Glencolumbkille Church, Malin Beg and Malin More. But it is most famous for being the parish of Fr McDyer.
Glenties born Fr McDyer (1910–1987) studied for the priesthood at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth in 1930, was ordained in 1937 and served as a priest in London until 1947. In 1951, he was apppointed to Gleann Colm Cille where he strived to develop local industries like the folk village and museum, community facilities and support initiatives to stop the decline of the area.
His determination can be seen from an extract of a letter to then Irish President Éamon de Valera, read out by Rea in the documentary. “I decided to write to him [Éamon de Valera] in 1953,” he wrote. “I was afraid he would not get my letter, so I took the precaution of sending a copy to his wife as well. “The result was quite startling, within months Gleann Colm Cille’s first factory was set up.”
At a time where more than half a million people emigrated from Ireland between 1945 and 1960, Gleann Colm Cille, led by Fr McDyer, refused to stand by and watch their Irish-speaking community and culture die. They taught the rest of rural Ireland an important lesson; do not wait for salvation from others, make it happen for yourself.
Rea tells the story how Gleann Colm Cille became a self-sufficient community developing their native industries of fishing, knitting, weaving and sustainable tourism to provide much-needed employment to returning emigrants. His narrative traces a dramatic transformation in modern Ireland from being a country of mass emigration to one of immigration from 1950’s to the 1990’s.
Fr Mc Dyer once said “it’s better to light one candle than curse the darkness” which is a much-welcomed philosophy in today’s uncertain times. The TG4 documentary is an intriguing glance back on the history of a small local parish and what life was like in many Irish communities that were ravished by emigration until the 1980s.
‘Meitheal – Gleann Colm Cille’ airs on TG4 at 8:30pm on Easter Sunday.