Mangan, James Clarence

(1803-1849)

   Born in Dublin, the son of a grocer, at school he learned Latin, Spanish, French, and Italian. His work and personal life suffered from the effects of opium and alcoholism and finally reduced him to poverty and malnutrition. In 1834 he began submitting translations from German to the Dublin University Magazine. He wrote for various magazines associated with Irish political movements the Belfast Vindicator, the Nation (the journal of the Young Ireland movement), and United Irishman. Some of his translations, which he claimed were of Irish or Eastern languages (which he did not know), were either much or all of his own work. When he died of cholera in Meath Hospital, Dublin, only two persons attended his funeral. Thirty of his ballads were issued in Hercules Ellis's Romances and Ballads of Ireland (1850). Some of his publications: German Antholog y, 1845. The Poets and Poetry of Munster, 1849. Irish and Other Poems, 1886. Some of his poems: "Gone in the Wind," "Hymn for Pentecost," "Rest Only in the Grave," "St. Patrick's Hymn Before Tara," "The Fair Hills of Eiré," "The Irish Language," "The Karamanian Exile."

   Sources: 1000 Years of Irish Poetry: The Gaelic and Anglo-Irish Poets from Pagan Times to the Present. Kathleen Hoagland, ed. Devin-Adair, 1975. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). English Romantic Poetry and Prose. Russell Noyes, ed. Oxford University Press, 1956. Lyra Celtica: An Antholog y of Representative Celtic Poetry. E.A. Sharp and J. Matthay, eds. John Grant, 1924. 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 Golden Book of Catholic Poetry. Alfred Noyes, ed. J.B. Lippincott, 1946. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. Oxford University Press, 1971. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.