Gerald Griffin

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

For the NASA flight director, see Gerald D. Griffin.

Gerald Griffin
Born	(1803-12-12)12 December 1803 Limerick, Ireland
Died	12 June 1840(1840-06-12) (aged 36) Cork, Ireland
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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.[1] 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 In 1838, Griffin burned all of his unpublished manuscripts and joined the Congregation of Christian Brothers, a Catholic religious order, at the North Monastery in Cork, where he died from typhus fever.[2]

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.[3]

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.

References

1. Giddings, Robert, "Case Notes", in The Collegians, Atlantic, 2008, ISBN 978 1 84354 855 3
2. Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Gerald Griffin" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
3. http://geraldgriffins.ie/club-history/

External links

• "Griffin, Gerald" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. }
• The Life of Gerald Griffin, Daniel Griffin, James Duffy, Dublin, 1872.