Seumas macmanus biography sample
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Seumas MacManus was an Irish poet and playwright who had a special talent for the ancient art of storytelling. He thrilled audiences everywhere with his verbal interpretation of old Irish folk tales. The Irish word for a natural story teller was seanchaí, and MacManus was considered to be the last exponent of this ancient art. He always claimed that he had learned this skill from an early age, possibly at seven years old. He would join the family sitting by the peat fires in darkened cottages listening to the ancient tales and remembering them for future re-telling.
He was born in in rural Mount Charles, County Donegal into a poor family that struggled to keep their farm going. Despite the financial difficulties, Seumas managed to get a decent education and his writing skills were rewarded with the publication of some of his pieces in American newspapers.
He was married in his early thirties, in the year , and his new wife was the daughter of a County Antrim Fenian and a famous
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Ten months after the separatist Sinn Féin established the Dáil Éireann parliament in Dublin, and four months after Éamon de Valera arrived in America to raise money and political support for the Irish Republic, U.S. newspapers were packed with opinions about &#;the Irish question&#;. Below are short biographies of three native Irish writers and excerpts from columns they had published in October
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Harris
Frank Harris () was born in Galway and emigrated to America in , age He worked odd jobs and eventually moved west and earned a law degree. Harris returned to Europe and began his journalism career as a correspondent for U.S. newspapers before settling in London, where he worked at several publications. He began to write novels in the early 20th century; returned to amerika at the outbreak of the Great War; and became the editor at Pearson’s, a left-leaning monthly featuring fiction and arts and political coverage. In , he wrote an essay “An Englishman on Ireland”. Th
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Seumas MacManus
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As these excerpts from the Notre Dame Scholastic indicate, Seumas MacManus frequently visited Notre Dame and often told stories instead of lecturing. The student reviewers sometimes seem to regard the Irish fairy tales he told as a bit too childish for them. Their professors probably enjoyed them more.
One can get an idea of what sort of stories he told by reading his collection of Donegal Fairy Stories. For an idea of how he felt about Notre Dame, one can read his comments on the silver jubilee of the university. But to find out what the students thought of him, one must read the reviews they wrote.
A Pleasant Hour with a Noted Irish Story-Teller.
Notre Dame Scholastic, 6 February ().
Seumas MacManus from Donegal, the author of several volumes of stories and a frequent contributor to many of the leading American magazines, addressed the students last Wednesday in Washington Hall. His subject, "Iri