Macken, John (1784/5–1823), poet and newspaper editor, was born in Brookeborough, Co. Fermanagh, eldest son of Richard Macken, catholic linen merchant, and Catherine Macken (née Dugan). He ran a small business (probably in a branch of the textile trade) in Ballyconnell, Co. Cavan, in the early 1800s. In 1808, together with his brother-in-law, Edward Duffy (c.1770–1853), he established the first newspaper in Fermanagh, the Enniskillen Chronicle and Erne Packet, printed in the county town. More of a commercial enterprise than an organ of political radicalism of any colour, it kept an unimpeachable neutrality between Orange and mildly ‘catholic’ views. He edited the paper in concert with Duffy until 1818, when he moved first to London, then to Paris, with the object (it seems) of developing a literary career.
He had already produced a volume of verse under his own name, Minstrel stolen moments, or, Shreds of fancy (1814). It is likely that much of the verse published in the Enniskillen Chronicle was his own, though invariably unsigned or accorded pseudonyms such as that employed in his final collections, The harp of the desert (1818) and Lays on land (1821). These were presented as the work of Ismael Fitzadam, supposedly an able seaman serving in the Royal Navy under Lord Exmouth, who had reduced Algiers in 1816. One poem was entitled The Battle of Algiers. According to J. Emerson Tennent, his poems displayed ‘vigour of thought and profundity of feeling’ and deserved more recognition (Notes and Queries, 435). His Napoleon Moribundus appeared in the Poetical Album (1828) edited by Alaric A. Watts, and he also contributed to the Literary Gazette.
Though prolific and of some local celebrity, his verse was colourless and the hoped-for career failed to blossom abroad. In 1821 he came back to Enniskillen in poor health and resumed his editorial post. He died 7 May 1823, unmarried, and is buried at Aghavea cemetery, near Brookeborough.