Donagh MacDonagh

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Donagh MacDonagh (12 November 1912 - 1 January 1968) was an Irish writer and judge.

The son of the poet Thomas MacDonagh, he was born in Dublin and was still a young child when his father was executed in 1916. Tragedy struck again when his mother died not long afterwards in a swimming accident.

MacDonagh was educated at Belvedere College and University College Dublin. In 1935 he was called to the Bar and practised on the Western Circuit. In 1941 he became a District Justice. He was Justice for the Dublin Metropolitan Courts at the time of his death.

He published three volumes of poetry: "Veterans and Other Poems" Cuala Press about 1943, The Hungry Grass (Faber and Famer, 1947), and A Warning to Conquerors (Dolmen Press 1969). He also edited the Oxford Book of Irish Verse (1958) with Lennox Robinson. A play, Happy As Larry, was translated into a number of languages. He had three other plays produced: God's Gentry (a ballad opera about the tinkers), Lady Spinder (about Deirdre of the Sorrow and the Three sons of Ussna and by far his best writing) and Step in the Hollow a piece of situation comedy nonesense. He also wrote short stories.

He was married twice - his first wife died - and had four children from the two marriages.