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Patrick MacGill (24 December 1889 – 22 November 1963) was an Irish journalist, poet and novelist, known as "The Navvy Poet" because he had worked as a navvy before he began writing. Personal life. MacGill was born in Glenties, County Donegal. A statue in his honour is on the bridge where the main street crosses the river in Glenties.
Learn about the life and work of Patrick MacGill, a Donegal-born writer who became famous as the 'Navvy Poet' for his poems and novels based on his experience as a labourer in Scotland and Ireland. Discover how he exposed the exploitation of the poor and the working class in his books and journalism, and how he fought in World War One and emigrated to the US.
If unskilled Irish migratory workers in twentieth-century Britain may be said to have anything so lofty as a literary laureate, then Patrick MacGill (1890–1963) has first claim to the title. Born to a desperately poor Donegal family, MacGill was hired out as a...
- Liam Harte
- 2009
Patrick MacGill was an Irish author, poet, and playwright, best known for his novels and poems that captured the lives and experiences of working-class Irish people. His work often focused on themes of poverty, emigration, and the struggles of rural life in Ireland, drawing from his own early experiences as a laborer and navvy.
A comprehensive biography of Donegal-born poet Patrick MacGill (1890-1963) is presented. The harshness of his early life as a seasonal potato-picker and labourer, which emerges in many of his works, is examined.
The name came from “navigational engineer”, and referred to their original role of working on creating the canals that connected English towns. Canals became railways, and by the time Patrick joined their ranks, railways had become roads, but the navvy remained constant.
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MacGill, Patrick (1890–1963), novelist and poet, was born 25 December 1890 in Maas, Glenties, Co. Donegal, eldest among ten children of William MacGill, farmer, and Margaret MacGill (née Boyle), of Mullanmore, Glenties.
