<em><span>The Sinn Féin Leaders of 1916</span></em>
Easter Rising 1916
This pamphlet provides ‘14 illustrations and complete lists of deportees and casualties’
UCD Library Special Collections, the Curran Collection https://library.ucd.ie/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1403050
Cahill & Co.
1917
Image reproduced from the original held in UCD Library Special Collection.
Book
English
Pamphlet
Dublin, Ireland, Easter Rising 1916
<em>Literature in Ireland. Studies Irish and Anglo-Irish</em>
Criticism
Essays
Irish Literature
<p><strong>Thomas MacDonagh's work of literary criticism. <br /></strong>MacDonagh’s book collects 8 essays (or ‘Studies’ as they are deemed) along with a selection of ‘Poems of the Irish Mode’. Some portions of <em>Literature in Ireland </em>previously appeared in <em>The Irish Review</em> and in <em>An Macaomh</em> (the journal produced by P.H. Pearse at St. Enda’s College) and in <em>The Leader</em>. The ideas in this book were likely rehearsed by MacDonagh during his lectures at University College Dublin. Rumor has it that MacDonagh was correcting the proofs of <em>Literature in Ireland</em> while besieging Jacob’s Biscuit Factory during the days of the Easter Rising. Whereas this anecdote may well be a conflation in biographies and accounts which appeared in the aftermath of the Rising, on the other hand it may testify to the hurried process through which the ‘Studies’ were turned into a book swiftly published a month after MacDonagh’s execution. According to Johann A. Norstedt, the study has several shortcomings, such as MacDonagh’s lack of a critical attitude and method, his moralizing outlook, and his Romantic notion of the poet who is conceptualized as a seer spiritually or divinely inspired. However, Norstedt demonstrates how MacDonaghs’ argumentative approach makes the book iconic and a powerful assertion of Anglo-Irish literature and language as a ‘happy compromise between the Gaelic past and the predominance of English in Ireland’s future’. MacDonagh, in the Preface to <em>Literature in Ireland</em> dated January 1916, sets out to demonstrate three theses in his study:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>‘That, an Anglo-Irish Literature, worthy of a special designation, could come only when English had become the language of the Irish people, mainly of Gaelic stock, and when the literature was from, by, of, to and for the Irish people.</p>
<p>That the ways of life and the ways of thought of the Irish people—the manners, customs, traditions, and outlook, religious, social and moral—have important differences from the ways of life and of thought which have found expression in other English literature.</p>
<p>That the English language in Ireland has an individuality of its own, and the rhythm of Irish speech a distinct character.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sources:</p>
<p>MacDonagh, Thomas. <em>Literature in Ireland. Studies in Irish and Anglo-Irish Literature</em>. Dublin: Talbot Press, 1916. Print.</p>
<p>Norstedt, Johann A.. Thomas MacDonagh. A Critical Biography. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980. Print.</p>
Thomas MacDonagh (1878-1916)
<strong>UCD Library Special Collections<br /></strong><a title="Persistent link to this record for bookmarking" href="https://library.ucd.ie/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1101706">https://library.ucd.ie/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1101706</a>
Talbot Press
1916
Cover Image reproduced from the original held in UCD Library Special Collections.
Book, xxii, 248 p. incl. front. (port.) ; 21 cm.
English
criticism
Ireland
<em>Metempsychosis: or A Mad World. A Play in One Act</em>
Drama
Thomas MacDonagh
Irish Literature
<p><strong>Thomas MacDonagh's second play <em>Metempsychosis</em> (1912)</strong><br />First printed in <em>The Irish Review</em>, the play is a satire of theosophy and occultism. It was first performed on 18,19, 20 April 1912 by the Theatre of Ireland, a company formed in 1906 from a number of intellectuals and practitioners dissatisfied with the Abbey Theatre aesthetic and including Padraic Colum, P.H. Pearse, and Edward Martyn among others. Critics often focus on the main character Earl Winton-Winton de Winton who provides a unmerciful caricature of W.B. Yeats. However, Norstedt notes how the other character ‘Stranger’ is also satirized and argues that the ‘Stranger could be seen as a parody of MacDonagh’s initial reverence for Yeats (later regretted) and of MacDonagh’s own ideas of immortality expressed in some of his poems. White also notes how the play was misinterpreted as a serious comment on the topic of transmigration of souls.</p>
<p>Sources</p>
<p>MacDonagh, Thomas. “Metempsychosis: or A Mad World. A Play in One Act” <em>The Irish Review</em>. February 1912. 585-599. Print.</p>
<p>Nolan, Jerry. ‘Edward Martyn’s Struggle for an Irish National Theater, 1899-1920’. <em>New Hibernia Review</em>. Vol. 7, N. 2, Samhradh/Summer 2003. Print.</p>
<p>Norstedt, Johann A.. <em>Thomas MacDonagh. A Critical Biography</em>. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980. Print.</p>
<p>White, Lawrence William. "MacDonagh, Thomas". <em>Dictionary of Irish Biography</em>. (Ed.) James McGuire, James Quinn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Web.</p>
Thomas MacDonagh (1878-1916)
UCD Library Special Collection (Curran Collection).
<p><a title="Persistent link to this record for bookmarking" href="https://library.ucd.ie/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1888593">https://library.ucd.ie/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1888593</a></p>
<em>The Irish Review</em>
February 1912
Image reproduced from the original held in UCD Library Special Collections
Magazine
English
Drama, Periodical
1912
<em>Pagans: A Modern Play in Two Conversations </em>(1915)
Drama
Thomas MacDonagh
Irish Literature
<p><strong>Thomas MacDonagh's Third Play, <em>Pagans</em> (1915)</strong><br />Pagans is Thomas MacDonagh’s third play after <em>When the Dawn Has Come</em> (1908) and <em>Metempsychosis</em> (1912) and was first produced in April 1915 by the Irish Theatre in Hardwicke Street for a run of six nights. It is the story of husband and wife, Mr. John Fitzmaurice and Mrs. Frances Fitzmaurice, who have been separated for three years and who reunite in her Dublin house to realize that, despite their love for eachother, they can’t make a fresh start. The play is almost a dramatic version of MacDonagh’s poem ‘John-John’ (<em>Songs of Myself</em>) with the protagonist’s final nationalist speech as arguably one the major structural revision (Norstedt). The play is generally read as mirroring MacDonagh’s personal transition to military separatism (White), particularly due to its epilogue when John accepts the separation from his wife from his wife and announcing how</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“My writings have been only the prelude to my other work. […] Sooner that you think, Frances, politics will be dropped here, and something better will take their place […] You will not know yourself in the Ireland that we shall make here.” (<em>Pagans</em>)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The character of John was played by Thomas MacDonagh’s brother John, active in the Irish Theatre as actor and manager.</p>
<p>Sources</p>
<p>MacDonagh. Thomas. <em>Pagans. A Modern Play in Two Conversations</em>. Dublin: Talbot Press, 1920. Print.</p>
<p>Norstedt, Johann A.. <em>Thomas MacDonagh. A Critical Biography</em>. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980. Print.</p>
<p>White, Lawrence William. "MacDonagh, Thomas". <em>Dictionary of Irish Biography</em>. (Ed.) James McGuire, James Quinn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Web.</p>
Thomas MacDonagh (1878-1916)
UCD Library Special Collections https://library.ucd.ie/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1402112
Talbot Press
1920
Image reproduced from the original held in UCD Library Special Collections
Book
English
Drama
1920
<em>Songs of Myself</em>
Poetry
Thomas MacDonagh
<p><strong>Thomas MacDonagh's fourth collection of poems. </strong><br />This collection is MacDonagh’s fourth collection of poetry after <em>Through the Ivory Gate </em>(1902), <em>April, May and Other Verse</em> (1903), <em>The Golden Joy </em>(1906). According to Lawrence William White, even if borrowing its title from Walt Whitman, <em>Songs of Myself</em> showcases the ‘intensely subjective poetic voice characteristic of MacDonagh’s oeuvre, in preference to a Whitmanesque identification of the self with the representative man’. Johann A. Norstedt notes that this poetic work is one of MacDonagh’s more accomplished collections, displaying a commitment to devising a more original style. The poems in <em>Songs of Myself</em> reflect significant moments in his life such as the death of his mother and his journey to Paris during the summer of 1910. The collection includes frequently cited poems such as ‘John-John’ and ‘Envoi’.</p>
<p>Sources:</p>
<p>MacDonagh, Thomas. <em>Literature in Ireland. Studies in Irish and Anglo-Irish Literature</em>. Dublin: Talbot Press, 1916. Print.</p>
<p>Norstedt, Johann A.. <em>Thomas MacDonagh. A Critical Biography</em>. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980. Print.</p>
<p>White, Lawrence William. "MacDonagh, Thomas". <em>Dictionary of Irish Biography</em>. (Ed.) James McGuire, James Quinn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Web.</p>
Thomas MacDonagh (1878-1916)
UCD Library Special Collections (The Curran Collection)
https://library.ucd.ie/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1402113
Hodges and Figgis
1910
Image reproduced from the original held in UCD Library Special Collections,
English
Poetry
1910
<em>The Dream Physician</em> by Edward Martyn<em><br /></em>
Drama
Thomas MacDonagh
Irish Literature
<p><strong>The inaugural play of the Irish Theatre, Edward Martyn's <em>The Dream Physician</em> (1914). </strong><br /><em>The Dream Physician</em> was the inaugural play of the Irish Theatre a new dramatic venture set up in 1914 by Martyn, Thomas MacDonagh, and Joseph Plunkett and ‘conceived as an alternative to the commercial playhouses and to the peasant drama of the Abbey Theatre’ (Feeney). <em>The Dream physician</em> was first performed in the Little Theatre in O’Connell Street from 2<sup>nd</sup> to 7<sup>th</sup> of November 1914. The play is a parody against three Irish Literary Theatre directors George Moore (‘George Augustus Moon, an old journalist’), W.B. Yeats (‘Beau Brummel, a musician’), and Augusta Gregory (‘Sister Fernan, a hospital nurse). According to Jerry Nolan, Martyn’s satire in the play was aimed a number of fixations of the literary theatre directors: ‘the cult of egotistical interpretation of events, the posturings of self appointed geniuses, poetic incantations, occult practices, Fiona McLeod-William Sharpe style of Celtic verse, and Lady Gregory Kiltartanese.’ An example of this parodic mode is the scuffle at the end of Act IV, when an improvised séance with an eighteenth century wash-hand stand and with Sister Farnan as a medium degenerates when the wash-hand stand is broken by Moon:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>BRUMMELL. And just when the oracle was about to culminate in some stupendous utterance—Oh! To have it ignorantly and barbarously shattered like this—!</p>
<p>MOON. Look here, Brummell, I can’t stand you any longer. I’ll be quite frank with you. I admit you are a very good musician, or at least you were once. But I assure you that you are at the same time the most egregious intellectual fop the world has ever seen.</p>
<p>BRUMMELL. What do you mean, Moon? You know you cannot compose unless the female typist is at hand to flatter and call everything you produce a masterpiece.</p>
<p>MOON (very excited). Not at all—you take it for granted that I am dried up like yourself.</p>
<p>BRUMMELL (scornfully). Magnificent insolence—! But you can only think like a child. [They shake their fists in each other’s face. MISS WHELAN drops the fragments and flies out by the door at back calling for the Police. She is quickly followed by GERRARD, and by SISTER FARNAN, who bears off Audrey. MOON seizes the washhand-stand and defends himself, as BRUMMELL raises the banjo in order to strike him.]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Interestingly, Brummell-Yeats’s comment on Moon-Moore’s typist has been rendered in one of the caricatures by Grace Gifford, published in the frontispiece of the last issue of the Irish Review (September/November 1914).</p>
<p>Sources:</p>
<p>Feeney, William. ‘Irish Theatre, The (1914-1920)’. <em>Dictionary of Irish Literature</em>. Ed. Robert Hogan. London: Aldwych Press, 1996. Print.</p>
<p>Martyn, Edward. <em>The Dream Physician</em>. Dublin: Talbot Press, 1915. Print.</p>
<p>Nolan, Jerry. ‘Edward Martyn’s Struggle for an Irish National Theater, 1899-1920’. <em>New Hibernia Review</em>. Vol. 7, N. 2, Samhradh/Summer 2003. Print.</p>
Edward Martyn (1859-1923)
UCD Library Special Collections. https://library.ucd.ie/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1456726
Talbot Press
1915
Image reproduced from the original held in UCD Library Special Collections.
English
Drama
1915
<em>The Exodus. A Sacred Cantata</em>, words by Thomas MacDonagh, music by Benedetto Palmieri (1904)
Music
<p><strong>1904 Vocal Score for Thomas MacDonagh's The<em> Exodus: A Sacred Cantata</em></strong><strong> (Words by MacDonagh, music by Benedetto Palmieri).</strong></p>
<p>In 1904 Thomas MacDonagh won the first price at the Dublin Feis Ceoil for a religious cantata that he wrote with music by the Italian pianist and R.I.A.M. singing teacher Benedetto Palmieri. The cantata follows the actions of the Israelites as recounted in the book of Exodus until their successful crossing of the Red Sea (Norstedt). It was first performed at the Royal University on the 19<sup>th</sup> of May 1904 with Palmieri as a conductor. Arthur Griffith’s periodical, <em>The</em> <em>United Irishman</em>, criticized the cantata because it didn’t address more specific Irish subjects. This criticism partly contested the rules in the Feis Ceoil competition which allowed works by Irish-born authors ‘or’ on Irish subject as opposed to works by Irish-born authors ‘and’ on Irish subject (Norstedt). The collaboration between MacDonagh and Palmieri seems to be undocumented. After five years at the Royal College of Music in London (1885-1890), Palmieri worked at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin from 1900 to 1914 before returning to Italy during the wars. Palmieri most notably gave singing lessons to James Joyce who also participated in the 1904 Feis Ceoil winning a third-place medal for tenor solo singing.</p>
<p>Sources</p>
<p>Hodgart Matthew H. J. C. & Ruth Bauerle. <em>Joyce’s Grand</em> <em>Operoar: Opera in Finnegan’s Wake</em>. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997. Print.</p>
<p>MacDonagh, Thomas (words) & Benedetto Palmieri (music). <em>The Exodus: A Sacred Cantata</em>. London: Doremi, 1904. Print.</p>
<p>Norstedt, Johann A.. <em>Thomas MacDonagh. A Critical Biography</em>. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980. Print.</p>
<p>“Benedetto Palmieri: Joyce’s Singing Teacher.” <em>Music in James Joyce’s </em>Dubliners. Online Exhibition of the Royal Irish Academy of Music. 2014. Web. Accessed 25 May 2015. [https://riamarchives.wordpress.com/music-in-joyces-dubliners/benedetto-palmieri/]</p>
<p>White, Lawrence William. "MacDonagh, Thomas". <em>Dictionary of Irish Biography</em>. (Ed.) James McGuire, James Quinn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Web.</p>
Thomas MacDonagh (1878-1916)
Benedetto Palmieri
UCD Library Special Collections (The Curran Collection) https://library.ucd.ie/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1401556
Doremi
1904
Benedetto Palmieri; Thomas MacDonagh (1878-1916)
Images reproduced from the original held in UCD Library Special Collections.
Print book; 134 pages; 26 cm.
English
Vocal Score
1904
<em>The Golden Joy</em> (1906)
Poetry
<p><em>The Golden Joy</em> is Thomas MacDonagh’s third collection of poetry. According to Lawrence William White, this volume symbolizes MacDonagh’s transition ‘from Christian mysticism to neo-platonism’ where the poet is conceived ‘as divinely inspired mediator between the spiritual world and the physical’.</p>
<p>Sources</p>
<p>White, Lawrence William. "MacDonagh, Thomas". <em>Dictionary of Irish Biography</em>. (Ed.) James McGuire, James Quinn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Web.</p>
Thomas MacDonagh (1878-1916)
UCD Library Special Collections, the Curran Collection https://library.ucd.ie/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1252041
M.H. Gill & Son
1906
Image reproduced from the original held in UCD Library Special Collection
Print book
Englsih
Collection of poetry
Ireland 1906
<p>Frontispiece of the <em>Irish Review</em> with plate by George Russell (March 1913)</p>
<p>Irish Review</p>
Frontispiece of the March 1913 <em>Irish Review</em> with plate by George Russell (AE) entitled “The Plough and the Earth Spirit.” In the <em>Review</em> under the nom de plume AE, Russell contributed poetry and paintings inspired by his mystic beliefs. He used his full name for essays on agriculture and cooperation in Ireland which appeared as a series entitled “The Problem of Rural Life” from April to July 1911 and in October 1911.
George Russell (1867-1935)
UCD Library Special Collections, the Curran Collection https://library.ucd.ie/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1888593
The Irish Review Publishing Company
March 1913
Image reproduced from the original held in UCD Library Special Collections
Plate in print journal
English
Plate in Print Journal
1911, 1913
<p>Frontispiece of the <em>Irish Review</em> with plate by Nathaniel Hone (January 1912)</p>
The Irish Review
<p>Frontispiece of the January 1912 <em>Irish Review</em> with a plate by Nathaniel Hone entitled “The Wave.” Nathaniel Hone II (1831-1917) was connected with other important painters and art dealers on the Irish scene such as John B. Yeats, Sarah Purser and Hugh Lane.</p>
Nathaniel Hone (1831-1917)
UCD Library Special Collections, the Curran Collection https://library.ucd.ie/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1888593
The Irish Review Publishing Company
July 1912
Image reproduced from the original held in UCD Library Special Collections
Frontispiece in print journal
English
Plate and print article
Ireland January 1912