I've done quite a bit of work with Irish prose, but I've kind of neglected Irish poetry, particularly the poetry written by women. This is a very important area, for the women were quite talented in their craft, and yet quite often forgotten. This is my way of putting forth some of the lesser known poets. 

Ethna Carbery (3 December 1866 – 21 April 1902), née Anna Johnston, and later Anna MacManus was born in Ballymena in County Antrim. She was a journalist, writer and poet, and is known for the ballad Roddy McCorley

From Wikipedia:

Anna Johnston was born in BallymenaCounty Antrim. Her father was Robert Johnston, a timber merchant and prominent Fenian organizer. Her mother came from County Donegal.[1]

From the age of fifteen, when she had her first piece published, she contributed poems and short stories to a number of Irish periodicals, including United IrelandYoung Ireland, the Nation and the Catholic Fireside.[2]

She participated in the nationalist commemorations of the 1798 Rising and with Alice Milligan, Maud Gonne and others toured the country delivering lectures on the United Irishmen. In 1900 she was a founder-member of Inghinidhe na hÉireann, the revolutionary women's organisation led by Maud Gonne. She was elected a vice-president of the association, along with Jenny Wyse Power, Annie Egan and Alice Furlong.[3] She and Milligan wrote and produced plays as part of its cultural activities.[2]

She and Alice Milligan published two nationalist publications, The Northern Patriot and (later) The Shan Van Vocht, which was published from 1896 monthly until 1899. Its contributors included Katherine TynanNora HopperSeumas MacManus and Alice Furlong, and it contained some early writings of James Connolly.[2]

folklorist Séamus MacManus (1869–1960) and moved with him to Revlin House in County Donegal. It was then that she began writing under the pen name of Ethna Carbery because once she took the last name of MacManus she didn't want to be confused with her husband (also a writer). She died in Revlin House of gastritis the following year, aged 35. Her husband, who was three years her junior, outlived her by 58 years.[1] Although MacManus and Johnston were only married for one year her impact on his life ran deep. Seamus MacManus never remarried in his 58 years after Anna and even wrote a memoir dedicated to her.[4]

The Four Winds of Eirinn is a collection of many of her poems, which are just beautiful. The link is to the collection entirely...it's well worth a look! 

 

I know a purple moorland where a blue loch lies,
Where the lonely plover circles, and the peewit cries,
  Oh! do you yet remember that dear day in September,
The hills and shadowy waters beneath those tender skies?

Behind the scythes, swift-flashing, a wealth of gold corn lay,
In every brake a singing voice had some sweet word to say,
  When we took the track together across a world of heather,
With Joy before us like a star to point the pleasant way.

* * * * * 

In Kerry of the Kings you hear the cuckoo call,
You watch the gorse grow withered and its yellow glory fall:
  Yet may some dream blow o'er you the welcome that's before you,
Among the wind-swept heather and gray glens of Donegal.

Tags: MacManus, Nationalist, Séamus, poetry

Views: 454

Replies to This Discussion

My Aunt Mary at each holiday gathering in Euclid, Ohio who break in song Roddy McCorley. I often wondered as a child who wrote the ballad.

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