Ethna Carberry

Anna Bella Johnston was born on the 3rd December 1864 in Kirkinriola, Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland. Her father was a leading member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

From the age of fifteen, and her first publication, she contributed poems and short stories to several Irish periodicals, including ‘United Ireland’, ‘Young Ireland’, the ‘Nation’ and the ‘Catholic Fireside’.

In the 1890’s she worked with others on delivering lectures for political representation. With Alice Milligan she produced ‘The Shan Van Vocht’, a nationalist monthly of literature, history and comment that gained a wide circulation in Ireland and in the Irish diaspora. 

After marrying Seumas MacManus in 1901 she wrote under the pen name of Ethna Carberry. Her most famous work is ‘The Four Winds of Erinn’. 

Ethna Carbery died in Donegal, Ireland of gastritis on the 2nd April 1902. She was 37.

Portable Poetry

The Four Winds of Eirinn: 'Play us our Eire's most sorrowful songs''

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