Stephen Gwynn

Stephen Lucius Gwynn (13 February 1864 – 11 June 1950) was an Irish journalist, biographer, author, poet and Protestant Nationalist politician.

Shortly after his birth the family moved to Ramelton in County Donegal to the parish where his father had been appointed parson; he later became Regius Professor of Divinity at Trinity College Dublin.

Stephen Gwynn spent his early childhood in rural County Donegal, which was to shape his later view of Ireland.

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.

He wrote numerous books on travel and on the topography of his own homeland, as well as on his other interests: wine, eighteenth-century painting and fishing.

In July he was commissioned as a captain in the 6th (Service) Battalion, Connaught Rangers and served with them on the Western Front at Messines, the Somme and elsewhere.

Stephen Gwynn formed the Irish Centre Party in 1919 and stood unsuccessfully as an Independent Nationalist for Dublin University in the December general elections.

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.

[2] In a review in The Guardian of the latter work, critic Gilbert Thomas wrote: 'Two in a Valley'—a handsome quarto—is the sketch-book of a successfully 'atmospheric' artist in black and white.

Mr. Gwynn's accompanying letterpress, setting down the impressions of a comparative stranger in the Coln Valley, is slight, and sometimes, quite irrelevantly, he follows a red herring—or more precisely a trout!

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.

They had three 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.