Charlotte Elizabeth McManus


Charlotte Elizabeth McManus was an Irish nationalist, historian and novelist. Her family name sometimes appears as MacManus in sources. She was known as Lil and Lottie, and published as L. McManus.

Early life and education

McManus was born in Kiltimagh, County Mayo, the daughter of James McManus and Charlotte Elvira McManus. McManus was educated at home and in Torquay. Her brother Leonard Strong McManus was a physician, and her sister Caroline married Sir Edwin Cooper Perry, a physician and medical educator. Hospital matron Emily MacManus was her niece, and writer Dermot MacManus was a nephew.

Career

In midlife, McManus became ardent nationalist and a Gaelic League worker in Kiltimagh, County Mayo. Due to her work it is believed up to 7000 people attended a nationalist meeting in the area in 1909. She was on the anti-Treaty side of the Civil War in Ireland. She wrote for Penny Pamphlets, published in the Educational Company of Ireland series, and wrote articles for the Irish Independent. Her novel The Professor in Erin was serialized in the Sinn Féin newspaper, and uses an alternate world scenario to depict "such an Ireland as might have existed had the battle of Kinsale resulted differently, and if Ireland had not been subjected to the plantations that followed that battle". She also contributed chapters to the Seumas MacManus book The Story of the Irish Race.

Death and legacy

McManus died in Kiltimagh in 1944, in her nineties. In 1954 her novel Nuala was translated into Irish by Gearoid Mac Spealáin.

Works

Novels

  • Amabel: A MIlitary Romance
  • The Red Star, Do.
  • The Silk of the Kine, rep. as Silk
  • Lally of the Brigade
  • Nessa
  • The Wager
  • In Sarsfield’s Days: A Tale of the Siege of Limerick
  • Nuala: The Story of a Perilous Quest
  • ''The Professor in Erin''

Stories

  • "The Fish", "A Counter Reprisal" and "The Warrior"
  • ''Within the Four Seas of Fola''

Plays

  • ''O'Donnell's Cross''

Autobiography