- Stephen Lucius Gwynn
Stephen Lucius Gwynn (13 February 1864 – 11 June 1950) was an Irish journalist, biographer, author, poet and Protestant nationalist
politician and MP in the House of Commons of theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . As member of theIrish Parliamentary Party he represented Galway city from 1906 to 1918. He served as officer with anIrish regiment of the16th (Irish) Division duringWorld War I .Family background
He was born in Saint Columba's College in
Rathfarnham , southCounty Dublin , where his father John (1827-1917), a biblical scholar andChurch of Ireland clergyman, was warden. His mother Lucy Josephine (1840-1907) was the daughter of the Irish nationalistWilliam Smith O'Brien . Stephen was the eldest of eight children (five brothers and two sisters). Shortly after his birth the family moved toRamelton inCounty Donegal to the parish where his father had been appointed parson. He later became regius professor of divinity atTrinity College, Dublin .Early years
Stephen Gwynn spent his early childhood in rural Donegal, which was to shape his later view of Ireland. He went to
Brasenose College, Oxford , where as scholar in 1884 he was awarded first-class honours in classical moderations and in 1886 "literae humaniores". During term holidays he returned to Dublin, where he met several of the political and literary figures of the day.Gwynn married his cousin Mary Louisa (d. 1941), daughter of Revd. James Gwynn. She later converted to Catholicism. They had two sons and two daughters who were brought up in her religion, of whom Aubrey (1892-1983) became a Jesuit priest and professor of medieval history at
University College, Dublin . Their second son Denis Rolleston (1893-1971) was professor of modern Irish history atUniversity College, Cork . Stephen Gwynn’s brother Edward John (1868-1941) became provost of Trinity College and another brother Robert Malcolm became its senior dean.Professional life
After graduating he spent ten years from 1886 tutoring as a schoolmaster, for a time in
France , which created a lifelong interest in French culture, as expressed in his "Praise of France" (1927). By 1896 he had developed an interest in writing, becoming a writer and journalist inLondon focused on English themes, until he came into contact with the emerging Irish literary revival, when he served as secretary of the Irish Literary Society.This was the beginning of a long and prolific career as a writer covering a wide range of literary genres, from poetry and biographical subjects to general historical works. The eighteenth century was his particular specialism. He wrote numerous books on travel and topography of his own homeland, as well as on his other interests, wine, eighteenth-century painting and fishing.
Gwynn returned to Ireland in 1904 when he entered politics. In a by-election in November 1906 he won a seat for Galway city, which he represented as a member of the
Irish Parliamentary Party until 1918. During this period he was active in theGaelic League and was one of the few Irish MPs to have close links to the literary revival. He was founder of the Dublin publishing house of Maunsel and Company. He was opposed to the demand for Irish as a compulsory subject for matriculation. He supported the campaign which won the establishment of a Catholic university when he served on the Irish University Royal Commission in 1908. During the debate on the third Home Rule Bill, Gwynn at the request of his party leaderJohn Redmond wrote "The case for Home Rule" (1911) and was in charge of much of the party’s official publicity and its replies to criticism fromSinn Féin .World War 1
On the outbreak of
World War I in August 1914 Gwynn strongly supported Redmond’s encouragement of Irish nationalists and theIrish National Volunteers to support the Allied and British war effort by enlisting inIrish regiment s of the Irish Divisions , especially as a means to ensure the implementation of the suspended Home Rule Act at the end of an expectedly short war. Gwynn, now over fifty, enlisted in January 1915 with the 7th Leinster Regiment in the16th (Irish) Division . In July he was commissioned captain with theConnaught Rangers and served with them on the Western Front at Messines, the Somme and elsewhere.He was one of five Irish MPs who enlisted and served in the army, the others being
J. L. Esmonde , Willie Redmond,William Redmond andD. D. Sheehan , as well as former MP Tom Kettle. Together with Kettle and William Redmond he undertook a recruitment drive for the Irish divisions, co-operating with Kettle on a collection of ballads called "Battle songs for the Irish Brigade" (1915). Gwynn was made a chevalier of theLégion d’honneur in July 1915.In 1916 he was appointed to the
Dardanelles Commission .Recalled to Ireland in late 1917 to participate in the
Irish Convention chaired bySir Horace Plunkett , he sided with the Redmonite faction of the Irish Party in supporting a compromise with the southern unionists in an attempt to reach consensus on a Home Rule settlement which would avoid partition. On the death of Redmond in March 1918, Gwynn took over as leader of the moderate nationalist in the Convention. He opposed the threat of compulsory military service during theConscription Crisis of 1918 , though as a member of the Irish Recruiting Council he continued to support voluntary recruitment, encountering intense opposition led bySinn Féin .Latter years
He formed the Irish Centre Party in 1918 and stood unsuccessfully as an
Independent Nationalist for Dublin University in the December general elections. The party merged with Plunkett’sIrish Dominion League to press for a settlement by consent on the basis of dominion status, but Gwynn subsequently broke with Plunkett due to his willingness to accept partition as a temporary compromise. The polarities which divided Ireland during theAnglo-Irish War andIrish Civil War increasingly sidelined Gywnn’s brand of moderate cultural nationalism. Although he supported the newly emergent nation he equally condemned some of the excesses, such as the burning of houses belonging to Free State senators.From the 1920s Gwynn devoted himself to writing, covering political events as Irish correspondent to "
The Observer " and "The Times ". Later in his career he wrote some substantial works, and together with his sonDenis Gwynn ("The Life of John Redmond" , 1932) did much to shape the retrospective image and self-justification of John Redmond. Stephen Gwynn was awarded an honorary Dlitt. from theNational University of Ireland in 1940, and another from theUniversity of Dublin in 1945. The Irish Academy of Letters awarded him the Gregory Medal in April 1950. In his literary writings he stood for a humanism and tolerance, which qualities, due to political upheavals, were relatively rare in the Ireland of his day. He died on the 11 June 1950 at his home inTerenure , Dublin and was buried at Tallagh cemetery, southCounty Dublin Works
* "
Tennyson " (1899)
* "The decay of Sensibility" (1900)
* "The Old Knowledge" (1901)
* "Henry Grattan and his Times" (1904) (1971)
* "The Masters of English Literature" (1904)
* "Thomas Moore " (1905)
* "The fair hills of Ireland" (1906) (1914)
* "The case for Home Rule" (1911), (introduction byJohn Redmond )
* "Robert Emmet : a historical romance" (1909)
* "Battle Songs for the Irish Brigade" (1915), (collected withTom Kettle )
* "John Redmond's last years" (1919)
* "The Irish Situation" (1921)
* "History of Ireland" (1923)
* "Collected poems" (1923)
* "Ireland" (1924)
* "Experiences of a Literary Man" (autobiography) (1926)
* "Praise of France" (1927).
* "Ulster, Munster, Leinster" (1930)
* "The Life ofMary Kingsley " (1930) (1932), for which Gwynn was awarded theJames Tait Black Memorial Prize
* "SirWalter Scott " (1930)
* "The Life ofHorace Walpole " (1932)
* "The life and friendship ofDean Swift " (1933)
* "Oliver Goldsmith " ((1935)
* "Robert Louis Stevenson " (1939)
* "Salute to Valour" (1941)
* "Aftermath" (1946)Biograpical sources
* Thom’s Directory – Irish who’s who (1923)
* Biography in "The long Gestation, Irish Nationalist life 1891-1918" P. Maume (1999), pp. 229-230
* A Dictionary of Irish History since 1800, D. J. Hickey & J. E. Doherty, Gill & MacMillan (1980)
* A Dictionary of Irish Biography, 3rd ed. Henry Boylan (1998)
* Oxford Directory of Biographies (2004), vol.24External links
*
* [http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/eng/index.asp?docID=2517 Department of the Taoiseach] - Irish Soldiers in the First World WarOffices
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