Gerald Griffin

Gerald Griffin (12 December 1803 – 12 June 1840) was an Irish novelist, poet and playwright.

Biography

Gerald Griffin was born in Limerick, Ireland, the son of a brewer. He went to London in 1823, becoming a reporter for one of the daily newspapers, and later turned to writing fiction. One of his most famous works is The Collegians, a novel based on a trial on which he had reported, that of John Scanlan, a Protestant Anglo-Irish man who murdered Ellen Hanley, a young Catholic Irish girl. The novel was adapted for the stage as The Colleen Bawn by Dion Boucicault. In 1838, Griffin burned all of his unpublished manuscripts and joined the Congregation of Christian Brothers, a Catholic religious order, at the North Monastery in Cork, where he died from typhus fever.

He has a street named after him in Limerick City and another in Cork City, Ireland. Loughill/Ballyhahill GAA club in west Limerick play under the name of Gerald Griffins.

Some of his works

• Vol 1 (The collegians)
• Vol 2 (Tales of the Munster Festivals)
• Vol 3 (Tales of the Munster Festivals)
• Vol 5 (Tales of the Jury Room)
• Vol 6 (The Duke of Monmouth)
• Vol 7: Tales of the five senses
• Vol 8 (Poetical works and Tragedy of Gisippus)
• Vol 9: The invasion.

Selected bibliography

• Griffin, D. The Life of Gerald Griffin, Vol. I (London: 1843). online.