  Quantum Monte Carlo calculations of the first-row atoms Li-Ne and their
singly-positively-charged ions are reported. Multi-determinant-Jastrow-backflow
trial wave functions are used which recover more than 98% of the correlation
energy at the Variational Monte Carlo (VMC) level and more than 99% of the
correlation energy at the Diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) level for both the atoms
and ions. We obtain the first ionization potentials to chemical accuracy. We
also report scalar relativistic corrections to the energies, mass-polarization
terms, and one- and two-electron expectation values.
