Francis MacManus
The Yeats We Knew
€14.99
A portrait of the famous Irish poets from five accounts from other poets, novelists and publicists
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Description
EDITED BY FRANCIS MACMANUS That deep man, William Butler Yeats, was saluted as the greatest poet of our century. He puzzled, fascinated, astonished, charmed, antagonized and even patronized his contemporaries. What was he like? Was the intimate private poet the same figure as the politician, the alleged poseur, the handsome man who moved slowly and hieratically through a street or a drawing-room? Five of his contemporaries recall him from the living portrait gallery of their memories in this lively book, The Yeats We Knew. The five men are all distinguished writers – poets, novelists, and publicists – and they are Padraic Colum, Francis Stuart, Monk Gibbon, Austin Clarke and Earnán de Blaghd. The portraits differ in details but they all add up to a picture of a most potent Irish personality whose words and ideas still work profoundly in minds and hearts. These five contributions, edited and introduced by Francis MacManus, are the texts of Thomas Davis Lectures broadcast on Radio Éireann to celebrate the centenary of the poet’s birth in 1965. Francis MacManus (8 March 1909 – 27 November 1965) was an Irish novelist and broadcaster.
Author
Francis MacManus (8 March 1909 – 27 November 1965) was an Irish novelist and broadcaster.
Born in Kilkenny, MacManus was educated in the local Christian Brothers school and later at St. Patrick’s College, Dublin and University College Dublin. After teaching for eighteen years at the Synge Street CBS in Dublin, MacManus joined the staff of Radio Éireann (precursor to RTÉ, the Irish national broadcasting entity) in 1948 as Director of Features.
MacManus began writing while still teaching and first published a trilogy set in Penal times and concerning the life of Donnchadh Ruadh Mac Conmara, an author of Irish poetry in the Irish-language. The trilogy comprises the novels Stand and Give Challenge (1934), Candle for the Proud (1936) and Men Withering (1939).
A second trilogy followed which turned its attention to contemporary Ireland: This House Was Mine (1937), Flow On, Lovely River (1941), and Watergate (1942). The location was the fictional “Dombridge”, based on Kilkenny, and deal with established themes of Irish rural life: obsessions with land, sexual frustration, and the trials of emigration and return. Other major works include the novel The Greatest of These (1943), concerning religious conflict in nineteenth-century Kilkenny, and the biographies Boccaccio (1947) and Saint Columban (1963). In his last two novels, MacManus descended into the depths of theological debate: The Fire in the Dust (1950) was followed by American Son (1959), a remarkable dialogue between conflicting modes of belief which reveals the strong influence of Roman Catholicism on the author.
MacManus died in Dublin 27 November 1965 at the age of 56, from a heart attack.
The RTÉ Francis MacManus Short Story Award was established in his memory in 1985.