That sweeps along to the mighty sea;
God will inspire me while I deliver
My soul of thee!"
James Clarence Mangan (1 May 1803, Dublin – 20 June 1849) was an Irish Romantic poet. He very freely translated works from German, Turkish, Persian, Arabic, and Irish into English, and a lot of his works, like "A Vision of Connaught in the Thirteenth Century", are stirred by his love for Ireland.
He was born James Mangan at Fishamble Street, Dublin, the son of James Mangan, a former hedge school teacher, and Catherine Smith. His father, described as having "a princely soul but no prudence", took over a grocery business owned by the Smiths, but because of his iffy business speculations and tendency to throw expensive parties, the business became bankrupt.
Before he was fifteen, Mangan was educated in various schools, one of which was a Jesuit school in Saul's court, where he learned Latin, Spanish, French, and Italian; this laid the foundations of his diverse linguistic scholarship. When he turned fifteen, he had to find a job to support his family; he first worked as a scrivener's clerk for seven years, then in an attorney's office for three years more. It is said that he looked onto these years with a shuddering and loathing horror on the rare occasions he was induced to speak of them.
During this time, Mangan first published his poems, mainly rebuses, enigmas, and puzzle poems in 1818, and he eventually adopted the middle name Clarence from 1820 onwards. He was also a multifarious reader, reading books in foreign languages. In 1830, upon leaving his previous line of work, he entered an erratic literary career; he wrote more poems, usually free translations from the German (a language he taught himself) or poetical renderings from literal translations from the Irish, to Dublin periodicals. He even became acquainted with Dr. John Anster, Dr. George Petrie, and Dr. J.H. Todd, all of whom pitied him and found employment suited to his tastes and acquirements; Dr. Petrie staffed him in the Ordnance Survey Office, and Dr. Todd staffed him in the Library of Trinity College.
Mangan's works were published in Dublin mazagines and journals, namely The Dublin University Magazine, The Dublin Penny Journal, and The Nation, the last one an Irish patriotic paper. He continued to send his writings to The Nation even after casting his lot with the patriotic journalist John Mitchel, who left The Nation to establish The United Irishman. The one collection of his work that appeared in his lifetime is the Anthologia Germanica, published in 1845.
Mangan was a very gloomy, lonely man throughout his life; his final years were marked with ill health, depression, alcoholism, and perhaps opium addiction, though he denied the latter. He was dismissed from his library employment in 1846, perhaps due to his alcoholism, and he constantly relied on his writing and the support of his friends, particularly Anster, James Haughton, Charles Gavan Duffy, Samuel Ferguson, and Fr Charles Patrick Meehan, who supported him to the bitter end.
Early in June 1849, Mangan was seized with cholera in a miserable lodging in the Kilmainham fever sheds; he was discovered in a state of severe malnutrition and was admitted to Mercer's Hospital for treatment. He eventually succumbed to his illness on the 20th of the same month, aged 46, and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
Mangan was hailed as Ireland's national poet long after his death, and writers such as William Butler Yeats and James Joyce greatly admired him.
