Charles Mc Glinchey lived on the Inishowen Peninsula in Donegal. Never married, he outlived his brothers & sisters, none of whom left an heir. In the 1940s & '50s, Mc Glinchey visited schoolmaster & friend, Patrick Kavanagh, to talk about his life. Kavanagh wrote it down. Thirty years later Brian Friel edited the material to form a book.