Alcoholic, opium addict, Romantic, Famine poet, Dublin street character, hero of James Joyce.

For biographer Bridget Hourican an encounter with the mercurial James Clarence Mangan quickly leads to obsession. The surviving biographical material – scant, subjective, sometimes falsified – both fascinates and frustrates her, and she becomes determined to find him.

The lines between research and real life become blurred, and Bridget starts to notice aspects of her life bleeding into Mangan’s. An obsession becomes a haunting, and she realises that the only way to truly reach Mangan is to reckon with her own ghosts.

Absorbing, witty and deeply researched, Finding Mangan resurrects Ireland’s most enigmatic literary figure, restoring him to his rightful place in the national consciousness.