Denis Gwynn

Who was Denis Gwynn?

Denis Roleston Gwynn was an Irish journalist, writer and professor of modern Irish history. He served in World War I.

He was the second son of Stephen Gwynn, writer and scholar. He was educated at St. Enda's School Rathfarnham, Clongowes Wood College and at University College Dublin where he graduated B.A., M.A. and D.Litt.

Gwynn served from 1916-17 on the Western Front in France during World War I, but was invalided home when he worked at the British Ministry of Information. He began work as a journalist in London and in Dublin where he was editor of The Dublin Review. During World War II he farmed in Hampshire.

He returned to Ireland and was appointed as research professor of Modern Irish History at University College Cork in 1948, a position he held until his retirement in 1962. He acted as editor of the Cork University Press and wrote a regular column called "Now and Then" in the Cork Examiner. As well as being a writer of history he was a writer of biography.

The novelist Jessie Victor Rickard lived the latter years of her life, until her death in 1963, in his Mentenotte home in Cork.