Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins S.J. a native of England, came to Ireland in
1884 as professor of Classics, University College Dublin, 86, St. Stephens
Green (Newman House). It was a period when Charles Stewart Parnell was
leading the national movement towards self -government and William E.
Gladstone pursued unsuccessful attempts to carry a Home Rule Bill for
Ireland.
The country was still recovering from the far reaching devastion of
the Famine (1844 - 1847) with the resulting decimation of its
population due to deaths and emigration and it is no wonder that Hopkins
found the Dublin of that period a joyless place, and wrote
that Newman House had fallen into a deep dilapidation.
His appointment to the fellowship of Classics was in the midst of controversy:
There was an Irish row over my election he wrote to Robert
Bridges on 7th March 1884. Despite this, he made many friends and acquaintances
such as the McCabes of Donnybrook and visited Judge OHagans
house in Howth.
He also visited the studio of the artist John B. Yeats, at No. 7, St.
Stephens Green, where he met his son, the poet W.B. Yeats and
Katherine Tynan. But Hopkins time in Ireland was destined to be short.
He contracted typhoid fever and died on 8th June 1889. He is buried
in the Jesuit plot, Glasnevin cemetery, Dublin.
During his time in Ireland (1884-1889) Hopkins was a frequent visitor
to the Cassidy family of Monasterevin House, visiting Monasterevin on
at least seven different occasions. On 2nd January, 1886, he wrote to
Robert Bridges, I am staying (till tomorrow morning, alas) with
kind people at a nice place. On March 29th, 1887 he wrote I
should have felt better for the delicious bog air of Monasterevin.
On 25th December 1887, he wrote to his mother You will see that
I am staying with my kind friend Miss Cassidy and her sister Mrs. Wheble,
and three younger Whebles are also in the house, cousins. On April
29, 1889, in a letter to Robert Bridges, he described Miss Cassidy as
.. an elderly lady who by often asking me down to Monasterevin
and by the change and holiday her kind hospitality provides is become
one of the props and struts of my existence.
To find more information about Gerard Manley
Hopkins or the annual summer school dedicated to him why not visit The
Official Gerard Manley Hopkins Society Website... here