James Clarence Mangan

James Clarence Mangan, born James Mangan (Irish: Séamus Ó Mangáin; 1 May 1803 – 20 June 1849), was an Irish poet. He freely translated works from German, Turkish, Persian, Arabic, and Irish, with his translations of Goethe gaining special interest. Starting around 1840, and with increasing frequency after the Great Famine began, he wrote patriotic poems, such as A Vision of Connaught in the Thirteenth Century. Mangan was troubled, eccentric, and an alcoholic. He died early from cholera, amid the continuing dire conditions of the Famine. After his death, Mangan was hailed as Ireland's first national poet and admired by writers such as James Joyce and William Butler Yeats.

Mangan was born on 1 May 1803 at Fishamble Street, Dublin, the son of James Mangan, a former hedge school teacher and native of Shanagolden, County Limerick, and Catherine Smith from Kiltale, County Meath. After marrying Smith, James Mangan took over a grocery business in Dublin owned by the Smith family, eventually becoming bankrupt as a result.

Mangan described his father as having "a princely soul but no prudence", and attributed his family's bankruptcy to his father's suspect business speculations and tendency to throw expensive parties. Thanks to poor record keeping, inconsistent biographies, and his own semi-fictional and sensationalized autobiographical accounts, Mangan's early years are the subject of much speculation. However, despite the popular image of Mangan as a long-suffering, poor poet, there is reason to believe that his early years were spent in relative middle-class comfort.