Patrick MacGill



Patrick MacGill (24 December 1889 – 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.

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.

During the First World War, MacGill served with the London Irish Rifles (1/18th Battalion, The London Regiment) and was wounded at the Battle of Loos on 28 October 1915. He was recruited into Military Intelligence, and wrote for MI 7b between 1916 and the Armistice in 1918. - See "MI 7b - the discovery of a lost archive of propaganda from the Great War". MacGill wrote a memoir-type novel called "Children of the Dead End".

In early 2008, a docu-drama starring Stephen Rea was made about the life of Patrick MacGill. One of the film's locations was the boathouse of Edinburgh Canal Society at Edinburgh on the Union Canal, and one of its rowing boats.

An annual literary summer school is held in Glenties in mid July each year in his honour.