Finding Mangan

The many lives and afterlives of James Clarence Mangan

An absorbing and innovative biography of Ireland’s national poet by a new literary talent.

June 1849: Dr William Wilde, passing a wretched hovel in Dublin’s Liberties, discovers James Clarence Mangan in a state of indescribable misery and squalor. Aged just 46, the man dubbed ‘Ireland’s National Poet’ is about to succumb to the cholera epidemic that is gripping famine ravaged Ireland.

August 2008: Writer Bridget Hourican encounters Mangan during a Liberties lock-in with that other great Irish poet, Shane MacGowan, who found inspiration in Mangan’s poetry.

Alcoholic, opium addict, Romantic, Famine poet, Dublin street character and hero of James Joyce, the mercurial Mangan begins to obsess Bridget. The surviving biographical material - scant, subjective, sometimes falsified - both fascinates and frustrates her and she determines to find him. Who was this Baudelaire of The Liberties – this lurker in Irish history whose enigmatic presence helped determine its course?

As the lines between research and real life become blurred, Bridget starts to notice aspects of her life bleeding into Mangan’s. An obsession becomes a haunting and she realises that the only way to truly reach Mangan is to reckon with her own ghosts.

Finding Mangan resurrects Ireland’s most enigmatic literary figuring, restoring his rightful place in the national consciousness.

‘Imaginative and absorbing, at last Mangan has found the perfect biographer.’ John Banville

‘A new, shapeshifting approach to biography . It reads like a dream.’ Roy Foster

‘I adored the writing. Its fizzing energy. Its spinning clarity. Its openhearted rigour.’ Alan McMonagle

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.