Donagh MacDonagh was an Irish writer, judge, presenter, broadcaster, and playwright.
Personal life
MacDonagh was born in Dublin on St Cecilia's Day in 1912. He was still a young child when his father Thomas MacDonagh, an Irish nationalist and poet, was executed in 1916. Tragedy struck again when his mother, Muriel Gifford, died of a heart attack a year afterwards while swimming at Skerries to Lambay, County Dublin on 9 July 1917. The two children were then taken care of by their maternal aunts, in particular Catherine Wilson. His parents' families then engaged in a series of custody lawsuits, as the MacDonaghs were Roman Catholic and the Giffords were Protestant; in the climate of Ne Temere, the MacDonaghs were successful. He and his sister Barbara lived briefly with their paternal auntEleanor Bingham, County Clare before being put into the custody of strangers until their late teens, when they were taken in by Jack MacDonagh. He was married twice, to Maura Smyth and, following her death after she drowned in a bath whilst having an epileptic seizure, to her sister, Nuala Smyth. He had four children, Iseult and Breifne by Maura, and Niall and Barbara by Nuala. He died on 1 January 1968 and is buried at Deans Grange Cemetery.
He published three volumes of poetry: "Veterans and Other Poems", The Hungry Grass and A Warning to Conquerors. He also edited the Oxford Book of Irish Verse with Lennox Robinson. He also wrote poetic dramas and ballad operas. One play, Happy As Larry, was translated into a number of languages. He had three other plays produced: God's Gentry, Lady Spider and Step in the Hollow a piece of situation comedy nonsense. He also wrote short stories; published Twenty Poems with Niall Sheridan; staged the first Irish production of ‘’Murder in the Cathedral’’ with Liam Redmond, later his brother-in-law; and was a popular broadcaster on Radio Éireann.
Literature
Poetry collections
1941 - Veterans and Other Poems, Cuala Press, Dublin 1941
1969 - A Warning to Conquerors, Dolmen Press, Dublin 1969
Plays
1946 - Happy As Larry, Maurice Fridberg, London 1946
A ballad opera. The most successful play in London in post-war years though produced unsuccessfully in New York in an elaborate production by Burgess Meredith. Has been translated into a number of languages
1951 - God's Gentry
A ballad opera. Frequently acted but unpublished play about travellers
1957 - Step in the Hollow, Penguin 1959
1967 - Reprint of Happy as Larry by the Dolmen Press including a scene written after the initial publication.
1980 - Lady Spider, edited and annotated by Gordon M. Wickstrom, in Journal of Irish Literature, 9, pp. 3–82
