{{Short description|Irish writer, dramatist and theatre manager (1883–1971)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2026}} thumb|Ervine, 1931–32
'''St John Greer Ervine''' (28 December 1883 – 24 January 1971) was an Irish biographer, novelist, critic, dramatist, and theatre manager.<ref name="ce">{{cite encyclopedia |first=Rebecca |last=Steinberger |title=Ervine, St. John |editor1-first=Gabrielle H |editor1-last=Cody |editor2-first=Evert |editor2-last=Sprinchorn |encyclopedia=The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama |location=New York |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2007 |page=247 |isbn=978-0-231-14032-4 }}</ref> He was the most prominent Ulster writer{{according to whom|date=November 2025}} of the early twentieth century and a major Irish dramatist whose work influenced the plays of W. B. Yeats and Sean O'Casey{{citation needed|date=November 2025}}. ''The Wayward Man'' was among the first novels to explore the character, and conflicts, of Belfast.<ref name="Turnpike">{{cite web |title=Turnpike Books: Authors |url=http://turnpikebooks.co.uk/authors/ |publisher=Turnpike Books |access-date=21 October 2020 |archive-date=31 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201031085933/http://turnpikebooks.co.uk/authors/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
==Biography== Ervine was born as '''John Greer Irvine''' in Ballymacarrett in east Belfast, in the shadow of the shipyards, to deaf-mute parents. Every member of his family had been born in County Down for 300 years. His father, a printer, died soon after his birth and the family moved in with Ervine's grandmother who ran a small shop. Ervine became an insurance clerk in a Belfast office at the age of 17 and shortly after he moved to London.<ref name="Turnpike"/>
In London Ervine met George Bernard Shaw and began to write journalism as well as his first plays, adopting the name St John Ervine "as more fitting for his ambitions". His first full-length play, ''Mixed Marriage'', was produced by Dublin's Abbey Theatre in 1911. It had several runs as one of the Abbey's most profitable plays. Yeats praised Ervine's plays for depicting the real life experienced by the people of the north of Ireland as Synge's work had done for those of the west of Ireland.<ref name="Turnpike"/>
In June 1913, Ervine was standing beside Emily Davison at The Derby and witnessed her being fatally injured by King George V's horse.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/suffragettes/8317.shtml|title=BBC - Archive - Suffragettes - Time to Remember - The 1913 Derby|work=www.bbc.co.uk|access-date=25 December 2019|archive-date=24 May 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190524020041/http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/suffragettes/8317.shtml|url-status=dead}}</ref>
In 1915 Yeats appointed Ervine as the Abbey's general manager.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.abbeytheatre.ie/archives/person_detail/14780/ |title=Ervine, St. John Greer {{!}} Abbey Archives {{!}} Abbey Theatre - Amharclann na Mainistreach |access-date=29 May 2020 |archive-date=30 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200730160622/https://www.abbeytheatre.ie/archives/person_detail/14780/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Ervine's tenure was a commercial success. The production of several successful comedies restored the theatre's finances. But Ervine's demands on the actors, combined with his outrage at the Easter Rising of 1916, led to open conflict. Ervine resigned from the Abbey in 1916 and enlisted in the Household Battalion. On 1 January 1917 he was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the second reserve of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers,<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=30249|supp=y|page=8782|date=24 August 1917}}</ref> and was transferred to a regular battalion on 1 August 1917.<ref>{{London Gazette|nolink=y|issue=30938|supp=4|page=11805|date=7 October 1918}}</ref> After being wounded in Flanders one of his legs had to be amputated. He was promoted to lieutenant on 1 February 1919 and relinquished his commission due to his wounds on 5 December 1919.<ref>{{London Gazette|nolink=y|issue=31772|supp=2|page=1665|date=9 February 1920}} Substituted for notice in {{London Gazette|nolink=y|issue=31673|supp=4|page=15402|date=4 December 1919}}</ref>
Through the 1920s and 1930s Ervine wrote drawing-room comedies that were box-office successes. Several had West End runs of up to two years, among them ''Anthony and Anna'' (1926) and ''The First Mrs. Fraser'' (1929).<ref name="ce" /> In 1936 Ervine's ''Boyd's Shop'', "the play that defined Northern Irish drama for decades", was produced.<ref name="Turnpike"/> Arnold Bennett hailed him as a playwright "unequalled" in England, with plays that "combined great skill, fine ideals, and perfect sincerity with immense popular success".<ref name="Lothian">{{cite journal |last1=Lothian |first1=Alice |title=Plays and Novels of St. John Ervine |journal=The North American Review |date=May 1922 |volume=215 |issue=798 |page=645 |jstor=25121038 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25121038 |access-date=21 October 2020 |archive-date=28 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201028055541/https://www.jstor.org/stable/25121038 |url-status=live }}</ref> From 1919 to 1939 Ervine was also a theatre reviewer for ''The Observer''.
Alongside his plays Ervine wrote a number of novels. Of these the most successful, ''The Wayward Man'' (1927), was reprinted in 1936 as one of Allen Lane's first Penguin paperbacks (Penguin 32). He also produced several major biographies, including of the Unionist leaders Craigavon and Carson, of William Booth, of Oscar Wilde and of George Bernard Shaw. ''Bernard Shaw: His Life, Work, and Friends'' (1956) was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1956.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ed.ac.uk/events/james-tait-black/winners/biography |title=Biography winners {{!}} The University of Edinburgh |access-date=2 November 2020 |archive-date=19 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201019065340/https://www.ed.ac.uk/events/james-tait-black/winners/biography |url-status=live }}</ref>
Explaining the determination of his character Robert "Darkie" Dunwoody in his novel, ''The Wayward Man'', to leave the city despite the ties that bind him, Ervine wrote "I have never met anyone who was not depressed by Belfast".<ref name="Craig">{{cite news |last1=Craig |first1=Patricia |title=St John Ervine's 'A Wayward Man': the rediscovery of a Northern Irish writer |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/st-john-ervine-s-a-wayward-man-the-rediscovery-of-a-northern-irish-writer-1.1949362 |access-date=21 October 2020 |newspaper=The Irish Times |date=6 October 2014 |archive-date=4 December 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141204184141/http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/st-john-ervine-s-a-wayward-man-the-rediscovery-of-a-northern-irish-writer-1.1949362 |url-status=live }}</ref> Sean O'Faolain accounted Ervine "the only Belfast writer who has tried at all to bottle the 'realism' of the city". He suggested, however, that, "lacking poetry", Ervine "only succeeded in making it taste like reboiled mutton gone cold".<ref>{{cite book |last1=O'Faolain |first1=Sean |title=An Irish Journey |date=1940 |publisher=Browne & Nolan |location=Dublin |page=264}}</ref>
As "part of what might be called a programme for the reinstatement of certain neglected Northern Irish novelists", ''The Wayward Man'' was republished in 2014. Patricia Craig proposes that it is an exemplar of "a kind of Edwardian realism nurtured in the shade of Arnold Bennett and John Galsworthy, and embodying a distinctive Ulster Protestant strain".<ref name="Craig" />
By the 1940s St John Ervine was Northern Ireland's leading writer but also a controversial figure with “a remarkable antipathy to southern Ireland".<ref name="Turnpike"/>
== Personal life == In 1911 Ervine married Leonora Mary Davis (died 1965), a teacher, actress and playwright from Birmingham.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-06-24 |title=Hire purchases, milk puddings and difficult friends |url=https://ietarchivesblog.org/2022/06/24/hire-purchases-milk-puddings-and-difficult-friends/ |access-date=2023-03-11 |website=IET Archives blog |language=en}}</ref> They settled in Seaton, Devon in the 1940s.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Ervine, St John Greer {{!}} Dictionary of Irish Biography |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/ervine-st-john-greer-a2943 |access-date=2023-03-11 |website=www.dib.ie |language=en}}</ref>
In 1929, Ervine published an opinion piece in the New York Times stating that the ‘decline of theater’ was due in large part to women, and that women over the age of 40 should refrain from going to the theater more than twice a year.” <ref>https://www.nytimes.com/1929/02/04/archives/ruined-by-women.html</ref>
Ervine died on 24 January 1971 in Fitzhall, Iping, Sussex.<ref name=":0" />
==Selected plays== *''Mixed Marriage'' (1910)<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mixed Marriage |url=http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=32072 |website=PLAYOGRAPHYIreland |publisher=Irish Theatre Institute |access-date=2020-10-14 |archive-date=7 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807191410/http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=32072 |url-status=live }}</ref> *''The Magnanimous Lover'' (1912)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=32129 |title=The Magnanimous Lover |website=PLAYOGRAPHYIreland |publisher=Irish Theatre Institute |access-date=28 February 2022 |archive-date=31 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201031124826/http://irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=32129 |url-status=live }}</ref> *''The Critics'' (1913)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=32143 |title=The Critics |website=PLAYOGRAPHYIreland |publisher=Irish Theatre Institute |access-date=28 February 2022 |archive-date=26 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126160011/http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=32143 |url-status=live }}</ref> *''Jane Clegg'' (1913)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31878 |title=Jane Clegg |website=PLAYOGRAPHYIreland |publisher=Irish Theatre Institute |access-date=28 February 2022 |archive-date=15 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415104755/http://irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31878 |url-status=live }}</ref> *''The Orangeman'' (1914)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=32146 |title=The Orangeman |website=PLAYOGRAPHYIreland |publisher=Irish Theatre Institute |access-date=28 February 2022 |archive-date=2 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210302162637/http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=32146 |url-status=live }}</ref> *''John Ferguson'' (1915)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31800 |title=John Ferguson |website=PLAYOGRAPHYIreland |publisher=Irish Theatre Institute |access-date=28 February 2022 |archive-date=7 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807132529/http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31800 |url-status=live }}</ref> *''The Island of Saints and How to Get Out of It'' (1920)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31954 |title=The Island of Saints and How to Get Out of It |website=PLAYOGRAPHYIreland |publisher=Irish Theatre Institute |access-date=28 February 2022 |archive-date=30 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210930141709/https://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31954 |url-status=live }}</ref> *''The Ship'' (1922)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31342 |title=The Ship |website=PLAYOGRAPHYIreland |publisher=Irish Theatre Institute |access-date=28 February 2022 |archive-date=5 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210305140700/http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31342 |url-status=live }}</ref> *''The Lady of Belmont'' (1924), a sequel to ''The Merchant of Venice''.<ref>Ervine, St. John, ''The Lady of Belmont'', New York: Macmillan, 1924.</ref> *''The First Mrs. Fraser'' (1929) *''Boyd's Shop'' (1936)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31880 |title=Boyd's Shop |website=PLAYOGRAPHYIreland |publisher=Irish Theatre Institute |access-date=28 February 2022 |archive-date=2 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201202095452/http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31880 |url-status=live }}</ref> *''William John Mawhinny'' (1940)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=32207 |title=William John Mawhinny |website=PLAYOGRAPHYIreland |publisher=Irish Theatre Institute |access-date=28 February 2022 |archive-date=21 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201121103723/http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=32207 |url-status=live }}</ref> *''Friends and Relations'' (1941)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31764 |title=Friends and Relations |website=PLAYOGRAPHYIreland |publisher=Irish Theatre Institute |access-date=28 February 2022 |archive-date=15 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210615014120/http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31764 |url-status=live }}</ref> *''My Brother Tom'' (1952)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31219 |title=My Brother Tom |website=PLAYOGRAPHYIreland |publisher=Irish Theatre Institute |access-date=28 February 2022 |archive-date=21 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210421051725/http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31219 |url-status=live }}</ref> *''Ballyfarland's Festival'' (1953)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31220 |title=Ballyfarland's Festival |website=PLAYOGRAPHYIreland |publisher=Irish Theatre Institute |access-date=28 February 2022 |archive-date=18 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210418053014/http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31220 |url-status=live }}</ref> *''Martha'' (1955)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31227 |title=Martha |website=PLAYOGRAPHYIreland |publisher=Irish Theatre Institute |access-date=28 February 2022 |archive-date=8 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808112056/http://irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=31227 |url-status=live }}</ref>
A contemporary production of ''Mixed Marriage'' played at the Finborough Theatre in London from 4 to 29 October 2011, to critical acclaim.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/oct/10/mixed-marriage-review |title=Mixed Marriage – review |newspaper=The Guardian |location=London |access-date=2012-06-10 |first=Michael |last=Billington |author-link=Michael Billington (critic) |date=10 October 2011 |archive-date=28 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180928233133/https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/oct/10/mixed-marriage-review |url-status=live }}</ref> The Finborough Theatre subsequently produced ''John Ferguson'' in 2014, and ''Jane Clegg'' in 2019.
==Novels== * ''The Tailor of Charing Cross'' (1912) * ''Mrs Martin's Man'' (1914) * ''Alice and a Family'' (1915) * ''Changing Winds'' (1917) * ''The Foolish Lovers'' (1920) *''The Wayward Man'' (1927) (2014, Turnpike Books, Dublin. {{ISBN|978-0957233614}})
==See also== *List of Northern Irish writers
==References== {{Reflist}}
== External links == * [https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadID=00866 St. John Greer Ervine Collection] at the Harry Ransom Center * {{Gutenberg author |id=3061| name=St. John Greer Ervine}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=St. John Greer Ervine}} * [http://modjourn.org/render.php?view=mjp_object&id=mjp.2005.01.015 Extended profile] * {{cite TIWW |article= Ervine, John St. John Greer |page= 74}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ervine, St. John Greer}} Category:1883 births Category:1971 deaths Category:20th-century British dramatists and playwrights Category:20th-century British male writers Category:20th-century novelists from Northern Ireland Category:James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients Category:Male dramatists and playwrights from Northern Ireland Category:Male novelists from Northern Ireland Category:Members of the Fabian Society Category:Presidents of the Critics' Circle Category:Royal Dublin Fusiliers officers Category:Writers from Belfast