Background
James Mangan was born on May 1, 1803, in Dublin, Ireland.
James Mangan was born on May 1, 1803, in Dublin, Ireland.
Mangan was educated at a Jesuit school where he learned the rudiments of Latin, Spanish, French, and Italian. He attended three different schools until the age of fifteen.
At the age of 15 Mangan became a copying clerk in a scrivener’s office and remained one for 10 years. He was employed for some time in the library of Trinity College, and in 1833 he found a place in the Irish Ordnance Survey. He suffered from depression and continued ill health drove him to the use of opium. He was habitually the victim of hallucinations which at times threatened his reason. For Charles Maturin, the eccentric author of M etmolh, he cherished a deep admiration, the results of which are evident in his prose stories. He belonged to the Comet Club, a group of youthful enthusiasts who carried on war in their paper, the Cornet, against the levying of tithes on behalf of the Protestant clergy. Contributions to the Dublin Penny Journal followed; and to the Dublin University Magazine he sent translations from the German poets. The mystical tendency of German poetry had a special appeal for him. He chose poems that were attuned to his own melancholy temperament, and did much that was excellent in this field. He also wrote versions of old Irish poems, though his knowledge of the language, at any rate at the beginning of his career, was but slight. Some of his best-known Irish poems, however, O'Hussey's Ode to the Maguire, for instance, follow the originals very closely. Besides these were "translations" from Arabic, Turkish and Persian. How much of these languages he knew is uncertain, but he had read widely in Oriental subjects, and some of the poems are exquisite though the original authors whom he cites are frequently mythical. He took a mischievous pleasure in mystifying his readers, and in practising extraordinary metres. For the Nation he wrote from the beginning (1842) of its career, and much of his best work appeared in it. He afterwards contributed to the United Irishman.
His most famous poems include "Dark Rosaleen", "Siberia", "Nameless One", "A Vision of Connaught in the Thirteenth Century", "The Funerals", "To the Ruins of Donegal Castle", "Pleasant Prospects for the Land-eaters" and "Woman of Three Cows". He also wrote a brief autobiography on the advice of his friend Charles Patrick Meehan, which ends mid-sentence.
James Clarence Mangan died of cholera on June 20, 1849, at Meath Hospital, Dublin.
James Mangan was a lonely and often difficult man who suffered from mood swings, depression and irrational fears, and became a heavy drinker and opium user.