George Birmingham

The novelist, play write and humorist George A Birmingham was the pseudonym for the writings of Canon James Owen Hannay. Hannay was born in Belfast in 1865. He was the son of Reverend Robert Hannay. He was educated at Haileybury and then went to study at Trinity College in Dublin. He graduated from Trinity in 1887. He was ordained into the Church of Ireland in 1888 and became a curate in Delgany the same year. While a curate in Delany he was living at Kindlestown Cottage Kindlestown Lower on the back road leading into Delgany at the time. In October 1889 James Owen Hannay married Adelaide Susan nee Wynne the daughter of Frederick Richard Wynne who was the bishop of Killaloe who had house called Killard on Blacklion Road in Greystones. James Owen Hanna’s son Robert was born at Killard in 1890. In 1892 he was appointed to his own parish in Westport County Mayo and served Westport until 1913. He began publishing a series of novels in 1905 with the Seething Pot being the first published. His stage writings included “Eleanor’s Enterprise which was Preformed in Dublin in 1911. Before the 1st World War Birmingham did an extended tour of America. From 1916 to 1917 he served as a chaplain in France during the 1st World War. After which he became rector to a small parish in Kildare and then became chaplain to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In 1922 he resigned these post and went to Budapest. He then went to Somerset until his wife’s death, when he moved to a parish in London. He died in London in February 1950.
His many works included a biography of his father in law and Greystones resident Bishop Wynne called The Life of Frederick Richards Wynne (1897), The Northern Lyon (1907), The Search Party (1909), Spanish Gold (1908), The Lighter side of Irish Life (1911), The Simpkins Plot (1911), The Piccadilly Lady (1946) and Ships and Sealing Wax (1927).