Daphne du Maurier is best known for her stirring romances set in Cornwall. She should, perhaps, not have strayed so far as to try and set one of her romances in Ireland, because she clearly never came over here. If she had, she would know that Slane is not a major sea port and there aren't many places in Ireland called Doonhaven.
Poor research aside, Hungry Hill features an Anglo-Irish family who were granted the land in previous generations and have now set up a copper mine on Hungry Hill, much to the consternation of local family the Donovans, who claim to have owned the land all this time. Family generations rise and die and the mines produce and dwindle and still the feud between the English and the locals carrys on, the only constant in a world where politics and technology should be changing everything.
2 comments:
A work of fiction is, well, a work of fiction....
This is from the book "Beara: A Journey Through History"
by Daniel M. O'Brien, published by the Beara Historical
Society, 1991. ISBN 0 95l7862 0 2., pgs. 99 - 100.
People and Places of DuMaurier's "Hungry Hill" - note:
Daphne "moved" Hungry Hill about 12 miles away from
its actual location to Allihies...
Andriff=Glengarriff; Doonhaven=Berehaven;Doon Island=
Bere Island;' Slane=Cork; Mundy=Bantry;Bronsea=Swansea;
Ardmore=Adrigole;Duncroom=Macroom;Lletharrog-Llethr Llestri;
Saunby=Tenby; Denmare=Kenmare;Oakmount=Oakmount;
Kileen-not known, somewhere on the road to Kenmare, perhaps
Ardgoom, where the Puxleys had property.
Brodrick=Puxley; Copper John Brodrick=Copper John Puxley;
Donavans=Donegans; Robert Lumley=Robert Hedges Eyre of Macroom,
from whom Puxley leased mining rights; Lord Mundy=Lord Bantry;
Rev. Tom Callaghan and his wife Harriet=Reb. John Halahan and
his wife Harriet; Simon Flower=Simon White, brother of Lord Bantry;
Fanny Rosa Flower= Fanny Rosa Maria White, daughter of Simon
White; Boles=Bowlby; Hare=William Hare, Viscounty Ennismore,
grandson of the Earl of Listowel and M.P. Co. Kerry, 1829;
Kate Donovan=Ellen Donegan, the birth of whose illegitimate
daughter Ellen, by John L. Puxley, is registered in the Protestant
Church, Castletownbere 1860. Robert O'Brien Spencer=
Robert O'Brien, J. P. Studdert, J. P. Cullane, Co. Clare;
Adeline Price=Adeline, 2nd wife of Henry L. Puxley.
Good point, and nice informative comment, thanks for that.
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