1
Dear Mr MacDonagh I have read through the
poems you left with me
& think that they might be
all printed. A few of them
I do not care for, & some are
very carelessly written — Tommy
would have settled them if he
had lived. But in this edition
it is better to preserve all that
can be preserved, and, later on,
a selection might be made from
his verse which would be representative
of our poor friend at his best. I hope the
publishers will let me have a proof
of the few lines I wrote as preface. Yours very truly
James Stephens
Augt. 24 th1916 Written sideways down the right hand side of the page By the way, the bulk of them
of them were written three or four years
ago for I remember him repeating them to me
A letter from James Stephens to John MacDonagh (1880-1961). Stephens refers to the
posthumous publication of some of the poems of John's brother, Thomas MacDonagh (1878-1916),
one of the signatories of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, executed for his
part in the Easter Rising. Stephens writes that John that all the poems he sent can
be published. He notes that he did not 'care for' some of the poems and others were
'carelessly written' and would have been reworked by MacDonagh if he had lived, but
that they should be preserved nonetheless. He also suggests a later, 'representative'
edition of MacDonagh's work. The collection was edited by Stephens and published later
in the year under the title 'The Poetical Works of Thomas MacDonagh'.James Stephens
(1880?-1950) was a writer who witnessed the events of the Easter Rising and published
a famous account, 'The Insurrection in Dublin'. John MacDonagh was an actor, playwright
and theatre manager who fought under Thomas during the Rising and later worked for
RTE.