Life
1864-1950 [Stephen Lucius Gwynn]; b. Rathfarnham, Co. Dublin; son of Rev.
John Gwynn and Lucy Gwynn, an eldest dg. of William Smith O’Brien;
born at St. Columba’s, where his father was warden later becoming
Regius prof. of divinity at TCD [Archb. Wm. King’s endowment], and
Lucy, eldest dg. of William Smith O’Brien; ed. Columba’s Rathfarnham;
and Brasenose College, Oxford; worked on journals in London from 1894;
issued The Old Knowledge (1901), a novel about a Donegal schoolmaster
called Conroy who has visions of pagan gods of Ireland; his John Maxwell’s
Marriage (1903), concerning a forced marriage and depicting the climate
of sectarian hatred in Northern Ireland, with some scenes in America;
returned to Ireland, 1904; sec. of Irish Literary Society (in 1904); Nationalist
MP for Galway City, 1906-1918 [var. 1908; publ. The Glades in the Forest
(1907), containing stories about Donegal; acted as lit. adviser
to Maunsel & Co., on Yeats’s recommendation; his biographical
subjects. incl. Thomas Moore (1904), Horace Walpole (1932),
Dean [Jon.] Swift (1933); Oliver Goldsmith (1935),
R. L. Stevenson (1939) and Henry Grattan (also 1939); enlisted
in the ranks, 1914; afterwards received a commission, serving in France
with Connaught Rangers; saw the body of Willie Redmond being carried back
from the front by men of an Ulster regiment; leading member of IPP under
Redmond up to 1919; called the Anglo-Irish ‘a spiritually hyphenated
people’; WWI service, 1914-17, Legion of Honour; his house house
was destroyed in the same week as Sir Horace Plunkett’s during 1923;
issued Irish Literature and Drama in the English Language (1936),
identifying the marks of the culture as ‘nationality, religion, revolt’;
awarded Hon. D.Litt, NUI; founding-member of Yeats’s IALM [Irish
Academy of Letters and Medals]; wrote obituary for Yeats (Observer,
5 Feb. 1939); d. 11 June, Dublin. PI JMC DNB IF DBIV DIW DIB DIH DIL
KUN DUB OCIL
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Works
Poetry, The Queen’s Chronicler and Other Poems (London
& NY: John Lane 1901); A Lay of Ossian and Patrick (Dublin:
Hodges, Figgis, 1904); Collected Poems (Edinburgh/London: Blackwood
1923); Salute to Valour (London: Constable 1941), poems; Aftermath
(Dundalk: W. Tempest 1946).
Fiction (novels), The Old Knowledge (London: Macmillan 1901); John Maxwell’s Marriage, a novel (London: Macmillan 1903); The Glade in the Forest [Popular Irish Books] (Dublin: Maunsel 1907), stories; Robert Emmet: A Historical Romance (London: Macmillan 1909). Autobiography, Experiences of a Literary Man (London: Thornton Butterworth 1926).
Biography, Thomas Moore [Englishmen of Letters Ser.] (Macmillan 1904); John Redmond’s Last Years (London: Edward Arnold 1919); Captain Scott (London: J Lane 1929); The Life of Horace Walpole (London: Thorton Butterworth 1932); The Life of Mary Kingsley (London: Macmillan 1932; 2nd ed. 1933); The Life of Sir Walter Scott (London: Thorton Butterworth 1933); Claude Monet and his Garden (London: Country Life 1934); The Life and Friendships of Dean Swift (London: Thornton Butterworth 1933); Mungo Park and the Quest for the Niger (London: J Lane 1934); Henry Grattan and His Times (Dublin: Browne & Nolan 1939); Robert Louis Stevenson (London: Macmillan 1939); Saints and Scholars (London: Thorton Butterworth 1929); Oliver Goldsmith (London: Thorton Butterworth 1935)
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Miscellaneous, Memorials of an Eighteenth-century Painter: William Northcote (London: Unwin 1898); The Repentance of a Private Secretary (London: J Lane 1898); The Decay of Sensibility and Other Essays (Lane 1899); Today and Tomorrow in Ireland: Essays on Irish Subjects (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis 1903); Fishing Holidays (London: Macmillan 1904); Masters of English Literature (London: Macmillan 1904; rev. ed. 1925, 1931; 2nd ed. 1938); ed., Charlotte Grace O’Brien, Selections from her Writings and Correspondence (1909); The Case for Home Rule, Stated by Stephen Gwynn (Dublin: Maunsel 1911); Do., ([3rd edn.] 1913), xxviii, 160pp. [Carty 1091]; Connaught (London: Blackie 1912), ill. with 12 col. pls. by Alex. Williams; Ulster (London: Blackie n.d.), ill. with 12 col. pls. by Alex. Williams; Second Reading (Dublin: Maunsel 1918), essays; Irish Books and People (Dublin: Talbot/ London: Unwin 1920) [var. 1919 Hyland]; Irish Literature and Drama in the English Language: A Short History (London: Nelson 1936) [incl. ‘Modern Irish Literature’, formerly in Manchester Guardian, 15 March 1923, pp.36-40]; Garden Wisdom (Dublin: Talbot/Lon, Unwin 1921) [frontis. by Grace Henry]; The Irish Situaton (London: J. Cape 1921); The History of Ireland (London: Macmillan; Dublin: Talbot 1923); Ireland, with an introduction by H. A. L. Fisher [series ed., The Modern World: A Survey of Historical Forces] (London: Ernest Benn 1924), 247pp. [incl. as appendix the Act of 1922 authorising the Constitution of the Saorstat]; The Student’s History of Ireland (London: Longman’s 1925); Fond Opinions (London: Frederick Muller 1938), essays.
Travel, Highways and Bye-ways in Donegal and Antrim (London: Macmillan 1899; 1903), ill. Hugh Thomson, with folding map [var. Byways]; The Fair Hills of Ireland (Dublin: Maunsel 1906), ill. Hugh Thomson; A Holiday in Connemara (London: Methuen 1909); Beautiful Ireland (London: Blackie 1911), guidebook; The Famous Cities of Ireland (Dublin & London: Maunsel 1915), ill. Hugh Thomson; Duffer’s Luck (Edinburgh/London: Blackwood 1924), (viii), 308pp. [fisherman’s adventures]; ; Ireland, Its Places of Beauty, Entertainment, Sport, and Historic Association [Kitbag Series] (London 1927); In Praise of France (London: Nisbet 1927) [printed 1928, Cathach Catl. 12]; Ireland (London: Harrap 1927); Burgundy (London: Harrap 1930); Ireland in Ten Days (London: Harrap 1935); Dublin, Old and New (Dublin: Browne & Nolan; London: Harrap [1938]), ill.; The Happy Fisherman (London: Country Life 1936), ill. Roy Beddington [ills. of Lough Gill, Donegal, Westmeath, &c.]; River to River (London: Country Life 1937); Two in a Valley (London: Rich & Cowan [1938]), travel; Munster (London & Glasgow: Blackie [1938]); ed., Scattering Branches (London: Macmillan 1940); Memories of Enjoyment (Tralee: Kerryman 1946), 148pp. [selections from his writings with introductions to The History of Pendennis, 1903, and The History of Henry Esmond, 1900].
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Garden Wisdom; or, From One Generation to Another (Dublin: Talbot; London: Unwin 1921) 149pp.; The ageing of a Poet [W. B. Yeats]; An Artist and his Work; A Poet under a Cloud; A Lover of Justice [Mary Kingsley]; A Scholar [his father, ed. of Book of Armagh]; An Eighteenth Century Gardener [Horace Walpole].
Decay of Sensibility and Other Essays and Sketches (John Lane/The Bodley Head MDCCCC, reprinted from various magazines; 236pp.; titles include ‘Theory of Talk’; ‘Buying and Selling’; ‘Bachelor Women’; ‘Plea for Apple Dumplings’; ‘Nature in London’; ‘Sense of Smell’; ‘Paternal Emotions’; ‘Scores’; ‘Middlesex in Sept.’, &c. Memories of Enjoyment (Tralee Kerryman Ltd. 1946), 148pp.; titles include. ‘In Praise of Wine’; ‘What Did Shakespeare Drink?’; ‘What Izaak Walton Liked Better than Fishing’; ‘Long John [O’Connor]’; ‘A Galway Merchant’; ‘Looking Back in Donegal’; ‘About Oliver Goldsmith’, ‘Anno Domini’ [on Shaw’s 90th birthday], and others. The Queen’s Chronicler (London: J. Lane MDCCCCI], prev. publ in Anglo-Saxon Review; with ‘Known and Unknown’; ‘Gifford’s Grave’, and ‘The Woman of Beare’, et al., each appearing previously in other magazines –the last named in Fortnightly Review as part of an article, and adapted from Kuno Meyer’s prose translation.
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Notes
Dictionary of National Biography calls him author and Irish
nationalist; gd-son of W. S. O’Brien; ed. St. Columba’s and
Oxford, 1st class; MP Galway City 1906-1918; Irish Convention 1917; The
Queen’s Chronicler and Other Poems (1901); lives of Scott (Captain
Scott, 1930), Swift (1933); Goldsmith (1935), and R. L. Stevenson
(1939), and many books on Ireland.
Irish Book Lover, Vols. 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 11, 13, 14, 24, 26, 29, 30. Includes review: ‘Robert Emmet: A Historical Romance (Macmillan.) We venture to predict that this the latest emanation from the practised pen of Mr. Stephen Gwynn, will be one of his most popular works. It relates sympathetically, what is surely one of the saddest love-stories on record, already immortalised by Washington Irving and Thomas Moore. The characters of Sarah Curran and Leonard McNally are especially well defined, whilst the description of the betrayal of Emmet’s hiding-place by the latter is well conceived, and in face of the evidence adduced in the appendix, founded on a stratum of strong probability. The author has no need to apologize for the shortcomings of the work, for none can be found, from its opening lines to its brilliant close. “Sundered head and body lie today [... &c.; as quoted under Robert Emmet, supra.], See also FDA3, 480.
D. J. O’Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland: A Biographical Dictionary (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co 1912) lists The Queen’s Chronicle[r] and other Poems (London 1901); A Lay of Ossian and St. Patrick (Dublin 1903); MP, novelist and critic; monograph on Thomas Moore in Englishmen of Letters series.
Justin McCarthy, ed., Irish Literature (Washington 1904) selects “An Heroic Deception”; “The Young Fisher”; “A Lay of Ossian and Patrick”; “A Song of Defeat” [‘Not for the lucky warriors, / The winners at Waterloo / Or him of a newer name [...] Not for these, Ó Eire / I build in my heart to-day / The lay of your sons and you [...] // [...] For the woman of Eire keening / For Brian, slain at his tent’]; “Ireland” [‘Ireland, oh Ireland! centre of my longings / Country of my fathers, home of my heart [...] Keep me in remembrance, / long leagues apart’]. Further, a later piece on ‘The Irish Drama’ in Vol. X signed C. W. [Charles Welsh] reports that ‘[i]n an article in the Fortnightly Review for Dec. 1901, Mr Stephen Gwynn, the eminent critic, told the story of the Irish Literary Theatre’, and prints his account of the Irish National Dramatic Society, Dec. 1902 [here pp.xiii-xxv] in which Gwynn made references to Yeats, Martyn, Milligan, Moore, Benson, The Laying of the Foundations [Ryan, a long account], McGinley, Fays, Seamas O’Cuisin (Racing Lug, and Sleep of the King); Mrs Chesson [‘he follows on for ever, when all your chase is done, / He follows after shadows, the King of Ireland’s son’ – Connla, the son of Conn Céadcathach]; AE; the impact of Maud Gonne in Yeats’s Cathleen Ni Houlihan. Bio-bibl. notice cites works, Memorials of an Eighteenth Century Portrait Painter; Highways and Bye-ways in Donegal and Antrim; The Repentance of a Private Secretary; The Old Knowledge; The Decay of Sensibility and Other Essays; poems; a collection of stories of fishing experiences; and Masters of English Literature (1904).
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919); born Donegal 1864, ed. St. Columba’s Rathfarnham and Oxford. Nationalist MP for Galway City, 1906-1918; enlisted 1914-18; The Old Knowledge (1901) [Donegal schoolmaster Conroy communes with nature in visions of nature gods of pagan Ireland; fishing and cyling episodes, and home life scenes]; John Maxwell’s Marriage (1903) [tyranny of Protestant colonists and hatred produced in outcast Catholics; forced marriage; scene of realism unsuitable for some readers; hero fights in American revolution and shares in National schemes at home]; The Glades in the Forest (1907) [7 storties about Donegal; ‘The Grip of the Land’ describes small farmer’s struggle and love for bleak fields finding no counterpart in eldest bout set on emigration; pev. in Cornhills and Blackwoods]; Robert Emmet, with map of Dublin in 1803, (1909) [scrupulous fidelity to fact; Quigley, Russell, Hamilton, and Dwyer carefully drawn; vivid picture of the event rather than the personality of Emmet].
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Brian McKenna, Irish Literature, 1800-1875: A Guide to Information Sources (Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1978), pp.34, 35; cites Irish Books and Irish People (1919) 120p.’ which incl. reprint of essays ‘Novels of Irish Life in the 19th c.’ (1897), and ‘A Century of Irish Humour’ (1901); also Irish Literature and Drama in the English Language, A Short History (1936), in which the relationshop between politics and literature is stressed. Graves says, ‘for the past fifty years I have watched the movement closely [...] known most of the leading persons [...] [and] tried to help.’ For synopsis of Irish Literature and Drama (1936).
Brian Cleeve & Anne Brady, A Dictionary of Irish Writers (Dublin: Lilliput 1985); b. Co Donegal (1864-1950) [err.; and see IF infra.]
Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English, The Romantic Period, 1789-1850, (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), Vol. I; Irish Books and People (Talbot Press, n.d. [1919 or 20]); Irish Literature and Drama in the English Language: A Short History (London: Nelson 1936). Also ‘excellent reconstruction’, Robert Emmet (1909).
Léon Ó Bróin, Protestant Nationalists in Revolutionary Ireland (1985), godson of O’Brien, served with Connaught Rangers [141]; regarding Yeats’s Cathleen Ni Houlihan, Gwynn wondered if such plays should be produced at all ‘unless one was prepared to go out to shoot and be shot’ [ibid., 41; also A. N. Jeffares, W. B. Yeats, A New Biography (London: Hutchinson 1988), p.121; and see under Gonne].
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Brian Walker, et al., eds., Faces of Ireland (1992) notes that he was b. in Dublin but spent many of his early years in Co. Donegal; ‘Ulster travelogue, Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim (London); Collected Poems (1923); John Maxwell’s Marriage (Lon 1903), and The Glade of the Forest (Dublin 1907); Experiences of a literary man (London 1926).
Maunsel & Co. publishing list attached to St. John Ervine, Mrs Martin’s Man, Maunsel, 1915 pop. edn.), incl. notices of The Famous Cities of Ireland by Stephen Gwynn and ill. by Hugh Thompson, Large. Cr. 8vo., gilt Irish design, comapnion to Fair Hills of Ireland carrying further the same idea; Kilkenny espec. associated with resistance to Cromwell, though the varied record of its monuments is rehearsed; also chaps. on Antrim and Maynooth. The Fair Hills of Ireland … record of a ppilgrimage to historic and beautiful places in Ireland, so arranges an idea not only of their physical aspect today, but also the history for which they stand. Plaes have been chosen whose greatest fame was in the days before foreign rule, though often, as at the Boyne, they are associated with the later story of Ireland … whole range of associations is handled … in some measure the whole history of Irish civilisation as it concnered one particular place … continuous idea of Irish life, from … Cyclopean monuments down to the full development of purely Irish civilisation which is typified by the buildings at Cashel … what he student can learn from Native Irish poetry and annals regarding them’; ALSO, Songs of the Irish Brigade, ed. Stephen Gwynn and T. M. Kettle, with notice: ‘This stirring little batch of poems’ (TLS), ‘should be sent to every one of our men at the front - to the English, the Scotch, the Welsh, as well as to the Irish, and to the men from overseas’ (Daily Express, London).
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Cathach Books (Catalogue 12) lists Ireland, Its Places of Beauty, Entertainment, Sport, and Historic Association (London 1927).
Hyland Book (220) Ireland, Its Places of Beauty, Entertainment, Sport, and Historic Association (London 1927).[Kitbag Ser.] (1927), ills. end-pocket map; Ireland in Ten Days (1935); Dublin, Old and New (nd.).
Belfast Public Library lists 20 titles, including works on Swift, Moore, Tennyson, Kingsley, Emmet, Goldsmith, Mrs. Humphrey Ward and Munster (1912); Today and Tomorrow in Ireland (1903). Also John Redmond’s Last Years (1919).
University of Ulster Library, Morris Collection holds The Fair Hills of Ireland (1906); Highways and Byways in Donegal and Antrim (1903).
Library of Herbert Bell (Belfast) holds The Decay of Sensibility (London 1900); Today and Tomorrow in Ireland (Dublin 1903); A Holiday in Connemara (London 1909); Robert Emmet (Dublin 1909); The Fair Hills of Ireland (Dublin 1914); ill. by H[ugh] Thompson; The History of Ireland (London 1923); Garden Wisdom (Dublin 1921); For Second Reading (Dublin 1918); Irish Books and Irish People (Dublin n.d.); The Charm of Ireland (London 1927), ill. various Irish artists; The Life of Sir Walter Scott (London 1930); Ireland in Ten Days (London 1935); Irish Literature & Drama (London 1936); Memories of Enjoyment (Tralee 1946); Ulster (London 1911), ill. by A Williams.
Portrait of Stephen Gwynn, by Walter Osborne; see Anne Crookshank, Irish Portraits (Ulster Mus. 1965).
Recruiting: Battle Songs of the Irish Brigades, collected by Stephen L. Gwynn and Thomas Kettle (Maunsel 1915), 33pp. Note that Capt. Stephen Gwynn appealed to Shaw on behalf of the Irish Recruiting Council in 1918 (see John O’Donovan, Shaw and the Charlatan Genius, 1965).
Congested: Stephen Gwynn describes the Congested District Board and Rev. Green as bringers of ‘sweetness and light’ to the wild seaboard (Today and Tomorrow in Ireland, 1903; cited in Patrick Sheeran, The Novels of Liam O’Flaherty, 1976, p.23).
W. B. Yeats blocked the appointment of William Starkey (Seumus O’Sullivan) as literary adviser to Maunsel & Co., in favour of Stephen Gwynn and in spite of Russell’s support for the former. ( See A. N. Jeffares, W. B. Yeats, A New Biography, London: Hutchinson 1988, p.153.)
Colleagues &c.: Gwynn’s introduction to C. H. Rolleston’s biography of his father, T. W. Rolleston (1939), includes remarks on Rolleston [see RX] and others, including Horace Plunkett with whom he had a ‘worked closely’ during the Irish Convention of 1917. See also encomiastic note under Patrick Hogan, infra.
Play riot: Stephen Gwynn reported the premier of [Sean O’Casey’s] The Plough and the Stars for The Observer, 12, Feb. 1926: ‘twenty ardent young women and a few young men did their best to pull the curtains down, swinging from them and kicking over the floodlights.’ (Cited in Daniel Chambers, MADip Dissertation, UU, 2000.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)