Carbery, Ethna (Anna Macmanus)

(1866-1902)

   Ethna Carbery is the pen name of the Belfast poet Anna MacManus, the wife of the novelist Séamus MacManus. She began publishing in her teens, and her writings were popular with the early Sinn Féin movement. She contributed to most of the Irish magazines and newspapers of her time: the Nation, United Ireland, Harper's Magazine, New York Criterion, The Century, and other American periodicals. Her posthumous publications are: The Four Winds of Eirinn, 1902 (a book of poetry, finished and edited by her husband; it went to nine editions within a year). The Passionate Hearts, 1903 (a collection of short stories). In the Celtic Past, 1904. Some of her poems: "Hills o' My Heart," "On an Island," "The Heathery Hill," "The King of Ireland's Cairn," "The Love-Talker," "The Shadow House of Lugh."

   Sources: All the poems of Ethna Carber can be found online at http://www.thehypertexts.com/Ethna_Carbery_ Poet_Poetry_Picture_Bio.htm. An Anthology of Irish Verse: The Poetry of Ireland from Mythological Times to the Present. Padraic Colum, ed. Liveright, 1948. A Celebration of Women Writers: Mrs. Seumas Macmanus (Anna Johnston). http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/carbery/macmanus.html). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers. org). The Home Book of Verse. Burton Egbert Stevenson, ed. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1953. The Women Poets in English: An Anthology. Ann Stanford, ed. McGrawHill, 1972.