Madam, - The great scholar and editor George Thomson is celebrated, among other things, for encouraging Muiris Ó Súilleabháin to write his autobiography of Blasket Island life, Fiche Blian ag Fás, which was first published in Dublin 70 years ago in April 1933. Twenty Years A-Growing, the English-language version, was published in London the following month.
Thomson prepared and edited the text of Fiche Blian ag Fás for publication while teaching at Galway University and acted as agent for Muiris Ó Súilleabháin with the Dublin publishers The Talbot Press. In the negotiations and in the publishing contract Thomson was called upon to "contribute the sum of £100 towards the cost of production and publication". In 1933 this was was a considerable sum; Thomson sought to raise £50 by way of a pre-publication subscription and issued a brochure for that purpose.
I am at the final stages of preparing an edition of the correspondence in Irish between George Thomson and an Seabhac (Pádraig Ó Siochfhradha) of The Talbot Press concerning Fiche Blian ag Fás. The letters began in September 1932 and ceased with the publication of the book in April 1933. They deal with editorial matters, standards of orthography and of course the financing of the book. I have never seen a copy of George Thomson's appeal. Some of your readers may have a copy of that appeal folded within the first edition of Fiche Blian ag Fás which had a beautiful dust jacket from a painting of the Blasket Island by Harry Kernoff RHA.
I would be most grateful to see a copy of the Thomson appeal to complete the edition of the correspondence, which will be published by Sáirséal & Ó Marcaigh later this year. All letters will be acknowledged. - Yours, etc.,
MUIRIS MAC CONGHAIL,
School of Media,
Dublin Institute of Technology,
Aungier Street,
Dublin, 2.