BY SEÁN P. FEENY

ON Saturday, 24 May, the second annual Hiring Fair Walk will be undertaken in aid of two Donegal charities.

Last year the walk, which was started in memory of the children that were sent to the Letterkenny Hiring Fair, raised ¤67,000 for charity with 72 walking enthusiasts doing the 18 mile walk along the old pass.

Last year's money raised went in aid of 'The Owenie Trust' Kidney Dialysis Unit in Derrybeg which came about after the death of Owenie McGarvey (52) in October 2003 and it has been established to build and equip a field hospital in the heart of the parish of Gaoth Dobhair.

This year the organisers are hoping even more people will do the walk in aid of Cosán an Earagail, Errigal Path, and Ionad Eoghain, Kidney Unit.

Having started the walk at Poison Glen, Dunlewey, last year, walkers will turn things around this time around by marching off from the Market Square, Letterkenny, at 9am.

For more information and sponsorship cards call Neil Roarty 0876166086, Joe Gallagher 07495 31101 or Mickey Blake on 0861286265.

Until 50 years ago, children from many parts of west Donegal were sent to the Letterkenny Hiring Fair, to seek work for six months to support their families.

The people taking part in the sponsored walk will retrace the 18 mile long trip that the children had to make back from Letterkenny over the mountains to Glendowan and on to Dunlewey.

One of the organisers of the walk, Mickey Blake, remembers the hiring fair in Letterkenny: "It was always held on the Friday after May 12.

"Children from nine years of age upwards were hired to big farmers for six months and they got a pound a month and worked from dawn to dark, often sleeping in barns.

"Public opinion was too much against child labour so the hiring fairs had to be stopped. They were tough times for children and the families.

"Two of the most famous people that were hired out at children were Patrick McGill, author of 'Children of the Dead End' and Mickey McGowan of 'The Hard Road to the Clondike', who was first hired at the age of nine and walked all the way from Gortahork to the hiring fair in Letterkenny," Mickey said.

"The hiring fair stopped in the Fifties, 50 years on we are going to re-enact the walk that the children used to from Gaoth Dobhair to Letterkenny, starting at the Old Church, Dun Luiche, up the Poison Glen, down to Glendowan and finishing at the hiring fair monument at the market square in Letterkenny."

Retired teacher Joe Diver remembered that many young members of the local Gaoth Dobhair community made the long trip to the fair in Letterkenny.

"The passage that will be taken is known as Bealach na Gaoithe, meaning the windy way, between Dun Luiche and Glendowan, used by those going to the Hiring Fair in Letterkenny. This lasted for nearly 100 years, dating back as far as 1830.

"That road was also used by sheep farmers in Glendowan and Dun Luiche in those days. The path hasn't been used in a long time as people now travel by Glenveagh. In latter years it has been used as a walk from Glenveagh to Dun Luiche."

Joe said: "Hopefully there will be great support for these very worthy charities and for anybody interested in a mountain walk, it will be a great day."

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