Anthony Trollope and The Macdermots of Ballycloran
Anthony Trollope arrived in Drumsna in 1843 as a Post Office surveyor—a job he disliked, a village he found dull. He was 27, struggling, and convinced he had no talent for writing. But the village and its people entered his imagination. He wrote his first novel, The Macdermots of Ballycloran, set in and around the area. The novel is obscure now, but it was genuine work—not brilliant, but real. A local family, their struggles, the landscape of Leitrim all present. Trollope submitted it and was rejected repeatedly. It was finally published in 1847 to little notice. But Trollope had found the habit of writing. He wrote the second novel, The Kellys and the O'Kellys, also set in the area. These books didn't make him famous, but they made him a writer. He left Drumsna and went on to write the Barsetshire novels (Barchester Towers, The Warden, etc.) that made his name. But he always credited these Leitrim years—the quiet, the ordinariness, the chance to watch how ordinary people lived.