[Rev.] Edward Groves

Life
1775-?; friend and supporter of O’Connell; issued The O’Donoghue of the Lakes, and Other Plays (1832), which incl. The Donagh; also The Warden of Galway (Royal Th., 1831; pub. 1832), extracts of which appeared in Athenaeum (1833), a play concerning the Galway story of Justice Lynch and the son whom he is obliged to send to the gallows for murder; ran for 45 nights in Dublin. PI DIW RAF

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Criticism
“Abhba” [pseud.], ‘Query concerning Bibliographical Researches of Rev. Edward Groves’, in Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Ser. 1, Vol. VI (1858), p.366. See also F. S. Groves, ‘The Dramatic Writers of Ireland’, [No. X,] in Dublin University Magazine, LXVII (1856) [as infra].

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Commentary
Claire Connolly, ‘Irish Romanticism, 1800-1839’, in Cambridge History of Irish Literature (Cambridge UP 2006), Vol. I [Chap. 10], writes that Edward Groves (1775-?0 was ‘an ardent repealer and author of melodramatic history plays in the 1830s, who wrote adaptations of the Greek lengends for children’ - citing Stories from the History of Greece, from the Earlist Period to its Final Conquest by the Romans. Adapted to the Capacities of Children. By the Rev. Edward Groves, LLB, 2 vols (Dublin & London 1829).

F. S. Groves, ‘The Dramatic Writers of Ireland’ [No. X], in Dublin University Magazine, LXVII (1856), pp.15-[2]3, contains notes on James Kenney, Miss Edgeworth, Lady Morgan, Lady Clarke, Lord Valentia, Tyrone Power, Lord Glengall, Lord Lanesborough, Rev Edward Groves, Sir Martin Archer Shee, Frederick Edward Jones. This article - which is clearly a source for many comments in O’Donoghue’s Poets of Ireland (1912) and J. S. Crone’s A Concise Dictionary (1928) - does not give Groves’s dates or personal particulars any further than the above biographical notices. It includes however a summary of the 5-act play and related details, viz., The Warden Galway (1831), first performed Gaiety, 23 Nov. 1831; subject taken from Hardiman’s History [of Galway], being the story of Justice Walter Lynch, 1493, whose son Roderick fell into vices of the nobility of Castile and murdered his companion Valasquez; Lynch Snr. obliged to pass sentence of hanging on his own son on evidence of Connor, his son’s servant and the only witness; the author’s benefit on the 4th evening, under patronage of O’Connell, netted £400; repeated 30 times in Dublin but transferred unsuccessfully in London; also Alomprah, or The Hunter of Burmah (1832), played 4 times; melodramas, O’Donoghue of the Lake; The O’Donagh; and Silken Thomas.

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References
John Power, ed., The Irish Literary Inquirer contains followed by a reprint of a unique copy of a prospectus of a Bibliotheca Hibernicana, by Rev. Edward Groves. (Noticed in J. S. Crone, Irish Booklover, Vol. I, No. 1 (Aug. 1909), “Our Forerunner” [on John Power].)

D. J. O’Donoghue, Poets of Ireland: A Biographical and Bibliographical Dictionary of Irish Writers of English Verse (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co. 1912), lists The Warden of Galway (1832), produced on Dublin stage Nov. 1831, and extracts of which appeared in Athenaeum for 1833; Alomprah, [or] The Hunter of Burma, trag. (1832); The O’Donoghue of the Lakes, melodram., and other plays incl. The Donagh (1832); Ardent repealer; called a Protestant patriot in Mooney’s History of Ireland.; edited. Lord Charlemont’s translations from Petrarch, and published Stories from the History of Greece, as well as a work on universal language (Dublin 1846).

Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English: The Romantic Period, 1789-1850 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), Vol. 2, cites no bio-dates but calls him a Protestant patriot and author of The Warden of Galway (pub. 1876); Alomprah (?1832 [see DUM, infra]); The O’Donoghue of the Lakes (1832) [cf. play of same title by Alfred Howard, 1840]; The Donagh (1832); Stories from the History of Greece ... to its Final Conquest by the Romans, adapted to the capacities of children (1829); Summary of the History and Statistics of Ireland, drawn up for the seventh ed. of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, unpag. (1836); Pasilogia, an essay towards the formation of a system of universal language (J. McGlashan 1846) (8), 120, 34pp.

Richard Hayes, Manuscript Sources for the History of Irish Civilisation (11 vols., 1965), [“Printed - persons”], lists only two works for Edward Groves, viz., ‘The Dramatic Writers of Ireland’, Dublin University Magazine, LXVII (1856), ‘The Dramatic Writers of Ireland’, No. X [see Infra]; and Abhba (pseud), ‘Query concerning bibliographical researches of Rev. Edward Groves’ (Ulster Journal of Archaeology, ser. 1, vol. VI (1858), p.366.

Belfast Central Public Library holds Warden of Galway (1876).

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Notes
Plagiarised?: There is a letter in The Sydney Morning Herald [Australia] (20 May 1844) from the author of Hibernian Father addressed to the editor of the Weekly Register, rebutting charges of plagiarising the Warden of Galway, which he acknowledges having known of, but not having seen or read - being in Paris in 1831 at the time of its performance. [See National Library of Australia - Journals - online; accessed 11.04.2010].

Namesake (1): Eleanor Elizabeth Groves, widow of Rev Edward Groves, died at Seapoint Bray, aged 65; buried Aug. 25 1857; monument restored July 1898 [Gravestone inscription from “The Manuscript List Of Burials In St Paul’s Church Yard Bray, Co. Wicklow”, online; accessed 11.04.2010.]

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