Griffin, Gerald (1803–1840)

Irish novelist and dramatist. Griffin was born and educated in Limerick. His novels and stories capture a teeming Irish life, turbulent and sentimental by turns, in prose which is often vivid, and sometimes florid. They include Tales of the Munster Festivals (1827), The Collegians (1829), adapted as an extremely successful play (1860) by Dion Boucicault, with the title The Colleen Bawn, and The Rivals (1830).

Among his other novels are The Invasion (1832), Tales of My Neighbourhood (1835), The Duke of Monmouth (1836), and Talis Qualis, or Tales of the Jury Room (1842).

In 1823 Griffin went to London to pursue his writing career, where he was helped by John Banim. He returned to Ireland in 1827. In 1838 he joined the Society of the Christian Brothers in Dublin, and later moved to their monastery at Cork, where he died of typhus.