M’GEE, THOMAS DARCY (1825-1868).—­Son of a coast-guard at Carlingford, Louth.  M’Gee between the ages of seventeen and twenty won a remarkable reputation as a journalist in the United States and came back to Ireland to take up the editorship of the Freeman’s Journal, which he relinquished to join the Nation staff.  After the failure in 1848 Bishop Maginn procured his escape to America disguised as a priest.  M’Gee, Devin Reilly and Doheny quarrelled in the United States, and M’Gee’s political views gradually modified.  He proceeded to Canada, entered politics, and became one of the first statesmen of the dominion and a member of the Government.  In that position he was continually attacked by a section of the Irish as a renegade, and the bitterness of his replies inflamed feeling.  In April, 1868, he was assassinated by an alleged Fenian.  Local and sectional political hatreds appear, however, to have had more to do with the murder of M’Gee than his virulent denunciations of the Fenians.

MAGINN, EDWARD, D.D. (1802-1849).—­Son of a farmer at Fintona, Tyrone, Dr. Maginn entered the Church and speedily became noted for his vigour of intellect and strength of character.  In 1845 he was appointed coadjutor-Bishop of Derry, and created Bishop of Ortosia in the Archbishopric of Tyre.  A strong advocate of Repeal and tenant-right, he gradually attorned to the Young Irelanders when he discovered that the Whig Government had bought up Conciliation Hall.  In 1848 he sent Sir John Gray to Gavan Duffy offering to take the field at the head of the priests of his diocese if the insurrection were held back until the harvest had been reaped.  The sudden suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, however, forced the Young Irelanders’ hands two months too soon.

MANGAN, JAMES CLARENCE (1803-49).—­The first of the poets of the Young Ireland period.  He declined to write for any but the Irish public, and died in poverty.

MARTIN, JOHN (1812-1875).—­A landed proprietor of Co.  Down.  On his return from transportation, he re-entered Irish politics; was elected in 1870 to the British Parliament, for Meath, and played a leading part in founding the Home Rule movement.

“MARY” (1828-69).—­With “Eva” and “Speranza” one of the triumvirate of the women-poets of the Nation:  Miss Ellen Mary Downing of Cork—­afterwards a nun, Sister Mary Alphonsus.

MEAGHER, THOMAS FRANCIS (1823-67).—­Son of the O’Connellite member of the British Parliament for Waterford.  He escaped from the British Penal colonies to the United States in 1852 and served as Brigadier-General on the Federal side during the civil war.  When Acting-Governor of Montana he was drowned in the Mississippi.

MEANY, STEPHEN JOSEPH.—­A journalist, imprisoned in 1848 under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act.  In the United States he became a leader of one of the wings of the Fenian Brotherhood and, returning to Ireland in 1866, he was arrested on the way in London and sentenced to a term of penal servitude.