John Gwynn (Syriacist)

John Gwynn (Larne 1827 – 1917 Dublin) was an Irish Syriacist. He was Regius Professor of Divinity at Trinity College, Dublin (the University of Dublin) from 1888.

John Gwynn (1827-1917) was the eldest son of the Reverend Stephen Gwynne (1792-1873). The Gwynne family had been settled in Ulster since the 17th century. The spelling of the family surname had varied throughout the earlier years; it was John Gwynn, the subject of this article, who settled on “Gwynn” with no “e”.

John’s grandfather John Gwynne (1761-1852) had studied at Trinity College, Dublin. after taking a degree in Divinity he was ordained and became Rector of Kilroot near Carrickfergus, County Antrim. His elder son Stephen (1792-1873), John Gwynn’s father, followed a similar career route, graduating from Trinity College, Dublin and becoming Rector of Larne, County Antrim, and then Rector of Portstewart, County Londonderry.

When John Gwynn was only ten years old his mother Mary Stevenson was drowned, together with her maid, while bathing off the rocks on the Londonderry coast. The two daughters and four young sons were later taken in hand by a stepmother.

John was educated at Enniskillen Royal School in Ulster, and then followed family tradition by going to Trinity College, Dublin. His father's diary (still preserved at Trinity) records John's success in the entrance examinations, in the winter of 1845:

November 12 ... After considerable delay, we received the announcement, viz. John at the head of all the candidates from all the schools, his numbers being 25 ahead of the second best man.

Four years later, as an undergraduate, John Gwynn stood outside Trinity College and watched William Smith O'Brien and other political prisoners being marched through the streets of Dublin on their way to Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire), where a convict ship was waiting to transport them to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania).

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