I should like to put in a word for Ellen Shannon-Mangan. This writer contributed to the Irish Academic Press edition of the complete works of James Clarence Mangan, a monumental assignment getting all of that sorted and published in a critical, scholarly fashion.

Mrs. Mangan came by this name by marriage; her husband, who had died by the time the poetry and volumes were available to the public, had the last name of Mangan and had some blood connection to the poet. I always feel a little funny, though, when such relatives are spoken of as descendants; James Clarence Mangan never fathered children that I heard of.

Mrs. Mangan took on the task of a biography of the poet. There already existed other such works. And, Mangan being Mangan, he had written his own autobiography, the conclusion of which was lost; what remains, ends in mid-sentence. This man is a formidable challenge to a biographer. As for Ellen Shannon-Mangan, I venture to say that not only is her self-deprecating approach to biography -- let me back up and start again -- not only is her contribution, in one volume, not THE definitive Mangan biography, but she fully realizes that it cannot be such. Read carefully and critically, there are many clues in Mrs. Mangan's, guess I ought to say Mrs. Shannon-Mangan's, writing that she expects, and hopes, that one day her book will help a future author to compose a Mangan biography as great as its subject deserves.

As for me, I find it refreshing that Ellen Shannon-Mangan is so unpretentious and straight-forward in writing about an artist who went by many personae and was something of a frustrated playwright and actor, a lyrical poet in whose poetry and prose there is much drama on an intimate scale -- an artist, moreover, who was devoted to heroism on a national scale, who venerated Ireland's ancient heroes.   James Clarence Mangan was, and is, a lot to contend with.

Now, I personally could wish for a recording some of his written work. Some of his poems, be they translations or originals, beg to be declaimed aloud.