Land, Loved and Lost: A Tale of Love and War in 17th Century Ireland is a story of the love shared by Donough and Ellen O’Callaghan for one another, and for O’Callaghan’s Country the land they ruled along the Blackwater River in North Cork. Donough and Ellen were real people and their marriage reunited O’Callaghan lands concentrated around the castles of Clonmeen and Dromaneen. As chieftain of the clan, and as a member of the Confederation of Kilkenny, Donough fought for civil and religious liberty for Catholics, but the devastation of war prompted him and others to seek a peaceful settlement. After Oliver Cromwell crushed the Confederate Catholics, the estates of Donough and Ellen were confiscated, and they were transplanted to Clare. The people long entrusted to their care were now left leaderless and at the mercy of their new English landlords.
Amidst the turbulence of war, Donough and Ellen inculcated in their children the traditions of feasting and hospitality associated with the four festival seasons of the year, Imbolc, Bealtaine, Lughnasa, and Samhain, and revealed to them the treasury of ancient tales. They encouraged their children to love the land as they did, to appreciate its natural beauty, its ancestral monuments, and the holy ground where so many were interred. It was a land, loved and lost and with it an entire way of life.
Readings from Land, Loved and Lost