MacDonagh, Thomas (1878–1916)

Irish poet and revolutionary. MacDonagh was born in Cloughjordan, County Tipperary. Volumes of his verse, which has been compared to that of Richard Crashaw, are Through the Ivory Gate (1902), Songs of Myself (1910), Lyrical Poems (1913), and Poetical Works (1916). He wrote a book on Thomas Campion as a stylist of verse and his Literature in Ireland (1916) attempted to define an ‘Irish mode’, a distinctively Irish note, in English.

MacDonagh worked as a teacher and became a lecturer of English at the University College, Dublin in 1911. He joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913, and was appointed director of training. A signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republican in the Easter Rising of 1916, he was court-martialled and executed for his part in the rebellion.