Early years , where MacKenna went to school as a boy and learned Ancient Greek MacKenna was born 15 January 1872 in
Liverpool,
England to an Irish father and an Anglo-Irish mother. His father, Captain Stephen Joseph MacKenna, served in the
28th Infantry in India and under
Garibaldi in Italy. Returning to England, he wrote children's adventure stories and began to have a family. Growing up, MacKenna had seven brothers and two sisters. He and his brothers were educated at
Ratcliffe in
Leicestershire. It was there that he first acquired a knowledge of
Classical Greek. MacKenna impressed with his literary talents, particularly in his personal translations of
Virgil's Georgics and
Sophocles' Antigone. He passed the
Matriculation, but despite his talents he failed to pass the Intermediate: the university entrance examination. After a brief period as a novice in a religious order he became a clerk in the
Munster & Leinster Bank. He then obtained a job as a reporter for a London newspaper, and in 1896 progressed to a post as
Paris correspondent for a Catholic journal. During this period, in 1896, he published his translation of The Imitation of Christ, a work digitised and republished in 2012. It was in Paris in 1897 around the Hotel Corneille where he met
Maud Gonne,
Arthur Lynch and
J. M. Synge. Synge considered MacKenna his closest friend, and Lynch later wrote, In
London he collected books, joined the Irish Literary Society and became a member of
Young Ireland, a revolutionary group.
Culture and language interests With the outbreak of the
Greco-Turkish War of 1897, MacKenna rushed to join the Greek forces as a volunteer. This enabled him to acquire a command of
colloquial Greek. It was here that his love for Greek, both ancient and modern, became active. Years later, he would write, His service was brief, and he returned first to Paris, then to London, and afterwards went on to Dublin. After a brief stay in New York, where he lived in poverty, he returned to Paris. He then obtained a job as European foreign correspondent with
Joseph Pulitzer, reporting from as far afield as Russia and Hungary. Around 1907 or 1908 he married Marie Bray (1878–1923), an American born
pianist educated in France. They shared similar cultural and political interests. In the early 1900s MacKenna began to revise the Greek he had learned at school and to perfect his command of it. By 1905, he expressed an interest in translating the works of the Greek philosopher
Plotinus, whose concept of a transcendent “
One,” prior to all other realities, he found fascinating. He resigned from his job as a correspondent for Pulitzer, but continued to write for the ''
Freeman's Journal'', an Irish nationalist paper. In the meantime he published a translation of the first volume of Plotinus,
Ennead 1. MacKenna had already begun to acquire the rudiments of the
Irish language. He and Marie had attended
Gaelic League classes in London. In Dublin he did administrative work for the League and was keen to expand its activities. His house in Dublin was a centre of League activity, with enthusiasts meeting there once a week. His friend
Piaras Béaslaí later testified that MacKenna learned to speak the language with reasonable fluency. MacKenna had a high opinion of the capabilities of the language, saying "A man could do anything in Irish, say and express anything, and do it with an exquisite beauty of sound." Poet
Austin Clarke expressed awe regarding MacKenna's ability to use the Irish language: MacKenna regretted that he had come to the language too late to use it as a medium of written expression, writing "I consider it the flaw and sin of my life that I didn't twenty years ago give myself body and soul to the Gaelic [i.e. Irish] to become a writer in it..."
Irish nationalism MacKenna was an ardent
Irish nationalist and member of the
Gaelic League. He imagined a future where Ireland would be completely emancipated from all things English: This vision of Ireland's future is why he opposed
the Treaty. He saw the outbreak of war in 1914 as disastrous for all sides and was deeply saddened by the violence. The
Easter Rebellion of 1916 by militant Irish nationalists in Dublin took him by surprise, as it did for many in Ireland. He particularly mourned for his friend and neighbour,
Michael O'Rahilly, who was wounded by machine gun fire in
Moore Street and left to die over two days.
Later years and death Both he and Marie suffered from failing health. Marie died in 1923, and MacKenna moved to England to increase his chances of recovery. He continued to translate and publish the work of Plotinus, with B.S. Page being a collaborator on the last volume. By this time he had privately rejected Catholicism. His investigation of other philosophies and religious traditions drew him back to Plotinus and the intuitive perception of the visible world as an expression of something other than itself, the result of a "divine mind at work (or at play) in the universe." His income was greatly reduced and his last years were spent in a small cottage in Cornwall. Realizing that his death was approaching, he expressed he had no wish to live longer and had no fear of dying alone, instead preferring the prospect. By being alone, he would avoid the "black crows" who he expected would pester him with services once they found he was on his death bed. He both hoped and expected that there was nothing after death. In November 1933, MacKenna entered a hospital for operations to help with his failing health. He was initially expected to recover, but eventually lost the endurance to live. He was true to his word and kept his whereabouts a secret from friends, planning to die alone. Only a few days before his death, however, Margaret Nunn discovered his address from his landlord at
Reskadinnick and obtained permission to visit him. He died at
Royal Northern Hospital in London on 8 March 1934, aged 62. ==Translation of Plotinus==