Mona Douglas (18 September 1898 – 8 October 1987) was a Manx cultural activist, folklorist, poet, novelist and journalist. She is recognised as the main driving force behind the modern revival of Manx culture and is acknowledged as the most influential Manx poet of the 20th century,'Literature in English since 1900' by Martin Faragher, in A New History of the Isle of Man, Volume V: The Modern Period, 1830 – 1999, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000, p. 337 but she is best known for her often controversial work to preserve and revive traditional Manx folk music and dance. She was involved in a great number of initiatives to revive interest and activity in Manx culture, including societies, classes, publications and youth groups. The most notable and successful of these was Yn Chruinnaght.
Childhood Constance Mona Douglas (Connie) was born on 18 September 1898 at 49 Allerton Road, Much Woolton, Lancashire (now Merseyside).'Douglas, (Constance) Mona (1898-1987), folklorist' by Fenella Bazin in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessed 25 October 2013) She was the daughter of Manx parents, Frank Beardman Douglas (1863–1943) and Frances Mona (née Holmes - born London, Ontario, Canada of Manx parents) (1873–1953).'Douglas, Constance Mona, MBE, RBV' by Fenella Bazin in New Manx Worthies, ed. Dollin Kelly, Douglas: Manx National Heritage, 2006, pp. 157 – 160 Her parents had left the Isle of Man to find work in England, eventually setting up a bakery and confectioners in Birkenhead.'Ellan Sheeant: Ireland and Mona Douglas' Mannin' by Breesha Maddrell, Béaloideas 75 (2007), pp. 24 – 47
Because of ill health, Douglas was sent to live with her maternal grandparents, Ellen "Nell" Quayle and Patrick "Pat" Holmes (listed as Thomas in the 1901 Census) when only a matter of months old.'Of Demolition and Reconstruction: A Comparative Reading of Manx Cultural Revivals' by Breesha Maddrell, E-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies 2 (2006) pp. 133 – 163 Her grandmother would influence her greatly through her knowledge of Manx folklore, song and dance. Her childhood was spent in the vicinity of Lezayre, and later Ballaragh near Laxey,'Who is Mona Douglas?' (3) 'I was brought up first in Lezayre' ed. Stephen Miller, Manx Notes 117 (2010) where she received a very free and informal upbringing: "I never went to school and I used to just go round Ballaragh with the farmers and down to Laxey and went out in the boats with the fishermen, and wandering about pretty well as I liked."'Who is Mona Douglas?' (6) 'Beginnings (2)' ed. Stephen Miller, Manx Notes 120 (2010)
Music was a central part of Douglas' upbringing, most notably through the musical evenings which took place at her parents' house when she visited them. Both of her parents were musical: her father played the violin and flute, and her mother played the piano and sang; and they were both members of a choral society.'Who is Mona Douglas?' (5) 'Beginnings' ed. Stephen Miller, Manx Notes 119 (2010) On Sunday evenings, from when Douglas was six years old, a number of other cultured people from the community would gather at their house "for poetry readings, discussion and music". Through this she gained a knowledge of "the great English and American poets" and the music of Handel, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, Chopin, Puccini and Verdi. Some Manx music also featured:
"We knew little of folksong, but the Manx National Songs were often sung and played, and it was about this time, I think, that I first became conscious of my Manx nationality, and felt the first stirrings of that passionate love for the Island and all things Manx which has been with me ever since."
Douglas received a copy of Grimms' Fairy Tales aged four, obtained a public library ticket aged five and received her first collection of poetry aged seven (Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses). She took up writing poetry at this age, commenting later that "soon I began to spend my pennies on pencils and exercise-books instead of sweets and ice-cream."
During the holiday periods, Douglas would visit her aunt and uncle in Douglas. At the age of nine her visit coincided with the Eisteddfod of 1908, and she submitted her poem, Douglas Bay, into the competition. When it won first prize, she came to the attention of Sophia Morrison, W. Walter Gill and William Cubbon, whom she later described as "the strongest influences in determining the trend of my subsequent literary work. [...] I have no adequate words to express my grateful consciousness of the help and guidance given to me in my formative years by these three good friends." Sophia Morrison was responsible for setting Douglas on the task of collecting folklore, song, music and dance:
"[...] when she found the kind of life I was living she started me collecting, putting things down. She didn't call it collecting then. She said, 'You know, you ought to write down some of these things that people tell you and sing to you.' And she gave me a little notebook in which I started to write things down and I still have."
Douglas also began to publish her poetry at this time, submitting poems to and often winning competitions in publications such as The Girl's Realm, Lady's Pictorial, The Lady and The Gentlewoman. Her poetry took a stylistic shift in 1908 when she discovered the writing of W. B. Yeats, who would influence her writing for the rest of her life.
Youth By May 1915 Douglas had moved back to her parents in Birkenhead.Listing as a donor in 'T.E. Brown Memorial' in Mannin No. 5, May 1915 From here she studied at the Liverpool School of Art for two years whilst at the same time taking private lessons in violin, piano, singing and music theory from people associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic. With the start of World War I, she started work in her parents' bakery to replace a man who had gone to war.
Whilst in England, at the age of sixteen, Douglas had her first collection of poetry published; Manx Song and Maiden Song, published under a London imprint of Erskine Macdonald in 1915.'Who is Mona Douglas?' ed. Stephen Miller, Manx Notes 99 (2007) Some of this collection of 26 poems had been written when she was only fourteen. Besides the numerous poems depicting the Manx landscape and sea, one notable poem was entitled 'T. E. Brown: a memorial sonnet to the poet of Manxland.' P. W. Caine reviewed the collection, commenting that: "This little book of lyrics is full of beauty and charm. The sound of the sea, the scent of gorse and the silence of the mountains pervade it."'Notices of Books' by P. W. Caine, in Mannin No. 7, May 1916 Her poem, 'Two Twilights', illustrates both the style of her verse and also the mystical tone that pervades it:
Over the wild waves comes the call of the great spaces; White breakers leap from a plain of silver-grey— Dreaming lies the world, but the reckless sea still moveth, In the mystic hour of twilight, at the dawning of the day.
In 1916 Douglas took up Manx Gaelic lessons, writing by the end of November that "I am still keeping up my efforts to learn [Manx] & go over to Kennish's nearly every week for a 'lesson'. It is slow work, but someday I hope to acquire a perfect mastery – at any rate that is my aim."Letter to Sophia Morrison, 29 November 1916, quoted in 'Learning Manx (1915-16)' in "Restoring to Use Our Almost-Forgotten Dances": The Collection and Revival of Manx Folk Song and Dance by Mona Douglas, ed. Stephen Miller, Onchan: Chiollagh Books, 2004, p. 98 She did become fluent in Manx, coming to teach and write poetry in it over the coming decade.
Douglas' second poetry book, Mychurachan, was published in 1917. This collection of 40 poems derived its name from the Manx for driftwood or jetsam – mooirchooraghyn. In recognition of Douglas' poetry up to this point she was invested as a Bard of the Third Degree in the Order of Gorsedds at the Royal Eisteddfod of Wales, and given the bardic name of 'Mona Manaw' ("Mona of Man").
As a result of the death of Douglas' friend and mentor, Sophia Morrison, in January 1917, Douglas was elected Secretary of the leading cultural body of the Isle of Man at that time, Yn Çheshaght Ghailckagh (The Manx Language Society). Then aged only 18, the notice of Douglas' appointment stated that: "Miss Douglas is still very young, but the achievement of her youth is already such as to give the most glowing promise [...] Miss Douglas has leisure, she has enthusiasm, and those who are acquainted with her are confident that she has judgment."'Notices' in Mannin No. 9, May 1917
In the wake of Morrison's death, Douglas also stepped in to edit the final edition of the journal Mannin, to which she contributed a poem of her own in memory of Morrison.'Ersooyl' by Mona Douglas in Mannin, No. 9, May 1917 Douglas had earlier contributed folklore notes to previous editions of the journal,'Billy the Dollan' in Mannin No. 6, November 1915; and 'Lezayre Notes' in Mannin No. 7, May 1916 including her first published piece on folklore.'Introduction to the Second Edition' by Stephen Miller in "Restoring to Use Our Almost-Forgotten Dances": The Collection and Revival of Manx Folk Song and Dance by Mona Douglas, ed. Stephen Miller, Onchan: Chiollagh Books, 2004, p. iii
Through her position as Secretary of Yn Çheshaght Ghailckagh, Douglas also became the Secretary of the Manx branch of the Celtic Congress. In this capacity she attended the Celtic Congress of 1917, where she met Alfred Perceval Graves. He and others of the Pan-Celtic movement made a large and lasting impact on her: "my association with a number of national personalities convinced me firmly that the goal of nationalists in all the Celtic countries should be, eventually, an independent federation of the Celtic States." This Pan-Celtic fervour emerged in her third collection of poetry, A Dhooragh, published in 1919. The poem placed first in that collection showed clearly Douglas' "open sympathy" for the Irish Easter Rising of 1916:'Who is Mona Douglas?' (1) Mona Douglas in praise of the Easter Uprising (1919) ed. Stephen Miller, Manx Notes 100 (2007)
Kinsmen of the shining west! Your unrest wild hearts have shared: Soon from our land, too, shall rise, Through wild skies, a singing bird.
Douglas' avid interest in the Celtic Movement in Ireland was deepened when she visited Dublin in 1921 at the invitation of Professor Agnes O'Farrelly of University College Dublin, who she had probably met at the Celtic Congress four years earlier. Whilst staying with O'Farrelly in Rathgar, Douglas took a short course in Irish Literature; she also studied a course in librarianism, with the intention of getting a job at the Library of the Manx Museum, which was to open in 1922. However no such job materialised. Whilst in Dublin, Douglas met George Russell, who influenced and encouraged her interest in Manannan, as well as seeing W. B. Yeats whilst visiting the Abbey Theatre.