Seumas McManus
Distinguished Letterateur [sic]
As a Slight Token of Appreciation
From the Author
Francis O'Neill
Xmas
1917
Biography: Seumas MacManus (1867-1960) was an author and poet from Co. Donegal, Ireland. MacManus was considered by many to be the last great seanchaí, or traditional storyteller. Over the course of his life, he transcribed thousands of tales to paper, and published easily 25 volumes of these stories.
"These tales were made not for reading, but for telling. They were made and told for the passing of long nights, for the shortening of weary journeys, for entertaining of traveler-guests, for brightening of cabin hearths. Be not content with reading them ... And grateful be to the shanachies who passed these tales to me, for you – Sean O'Hegarty, Mairghid Burns, Eoghain O'Cuinn, and the Bacach Ruadh. May God grant their souls rest."
At the time that O'Neill signed this particular gift copy of his book O'Neill's Irish Music: 400 Choice Selections (1915), MacManus had already published 11 books of folklore, and was known to the Irish and Irish-American community as a window into a rapidly-disappearing oral tradition. O'Neill signed this book as the Irish Convention was underway in Dublin, dealing with "The Irish Question" and trying to determine the future of the nation; and within a year of the Easter Rising (Éirí Amach na Cásca) in 1916. The MacManus archives are in the holdings of the University of Notre Dame.
Provenance:
This copy of O'Neill's Irish Music: 400 Choice Selections (1915) was purchased at New York City's 12th Street Books in Manhattan for the amazing price of $4 by Daniel T. Neely in 2000, and gifted to Scott Spencer. Neely and Spencer were at the time in gradate school at NYU, studying under Gage Averill and Mick Moloney, and were playing in Moloney's community group, The Washington Square Harp and Shamrock Orchestra. Both Neely and Spencer are authors of this project.
