Denis Rolleston Gwynn

Denis Rolleston Gwynn (6 March 1893 – 10 April 1971) was an Irish journalist, writer and professor of modern Irish history. He served in the British Army in World War I.

Life Denis Gwynn was born on 6 March 1893, the third son of Stephen Gwynn, the Irish patriot, writer and Irish Parliamentary Party Member of Parliament. His mother was Mary ('May') Louisa Osborn Gwynn; his parents were first cousins. The middle name Rolleston was derived from Denis Gwynn's great-grandmother Catherine Rolleston, who married his great grandfather John Gwynne.

Along with his mother and siblings, but not his father, Denis Gwynn was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1902. He was educated at St. Enda's School Rathfarnham, Clongowes Wood College and at University College Dublin where he graduated BA (1914), MA (1915) and D.Litt. (1932).

After the war, Gwynn worked as a journalist. He became assistant editor of the periodical Everyman in London, joined the National Press Agency, and worked for a while as a reporter in Brittany and Paris, then in 1922 returned to London where he was active for many years as a journalist specialising in Irish Catholic issues. He was on the editorial staff of the Westminster Gazette and edited the Dublin Review from 1933 to 1939.

Denis Gwynn died at his home in Malahide, County Dublin, on 10 April 1971 and was buried at Stamullen Cemetery, County Meath.

Literary Connection

The novelist Jessie Victor Rickard lived the final years of her life, until her death in 1963, at Denis Gwynn's house in Montenotte, Cork. Jessie Rickard was a close friend of Alice Gwynn.

Works The Catholic Reaction in France, New York: The Macmillan Company, (1924). The Irish Free State, 1922–1927, London: Macmillan and Company Limited, (1928). The Struggle for Catholic Emancipation (1750–1829), London: Longman's Green, (1928), online A Hundred Years of Catholic Emancipation], London: Longman Green and Co., (1929). Daniel O’Connell, the Irish Liberator (1929) The Life and death of Roger Casement (1930) Edward Martyn and the Irish revival (1930) John Keogh: the pioneer of Catholic Emancipation (1930) (1934) Daniel O’Connell and Ellen Courtney (1930) The Life of John Redmond (1932) De Valera (1933) The O'Gorman Mahon (1934) The Vatican and the War in Europe (1940) William Smith O'Brien (1946) Young Ireland and 1848 (1949) Cardinal Wiseman (1950) The history of Partition (1950)

Biographical sources A Dictionary of Irish History since 1800, D. J. Hickey & J. E. Doherty, Gill & MacMillan (1980) A Biographical Dictionary of Cork, Tim Cadogan & Jeremiah Falvey (2006), p. 117