MacMANUS, M.J. Connacht Songs.

Dublin: The Talbot Press, 1927. 16mo. First edition. pp. 36. Green pictorial wrappers. A very good copy.
Connaught Songs illustrated by Seán O’Sullivan, is a slim volume of short lyrics conventional in tone, some of them reprinted from the Catholic Bulletin and the Irish Statesman.
MacManus, Michael Joseph (M. J.) (1888-1951), author, journalist, humorist, and bibliophile, was born at Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim, son of Patrick MacManus, a schoolmaster, and Maria MacManus (née Toole). Educated at the Presentation School in Carrick-on-Shannon, he later studied at Farnham College, Surrey. He attended the University of London, then worked as a teacher in Blackburn, Lancashire. While working as a journalist on Fleet Street (1910-16), he was a member of the Fabian Society, and contributed many articles to Irish newspapers and journals, including The Leader. Returning to Ireland in 1916 as a freelance journalist, he became actively involved in the independence movement as a writer, his contributions to The Irishman expressing his nationalist beliefs of the time. MacManus began to write for the Irish Press in 1931, his daily item ‘This happened to-day’ becoming a popular feature. Appointed the newspaper’s first literary editor in 1935, he recruited such talent as Patrick Kavanagh, Brian O’Nolan, Lennox Robinson, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, and Brendan Behan as regular contributors.