St. John Greer Ervine
Irish writer, critic and dramatist (1883–1971)
St John Greer Ervine (28 December 1883 – 24 January 1971) was an Irish biographer, novelist, critic, dramatist, and theatre manager. He was the most prominent Ulster writer of the early twentieth century and a major Irish dramatist whose work influenced the plays of W. B. Yeats and Sean O'Casey. The Wayward Man was among the first novels to explore the character, and conflicts, of Belfast.
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.
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.
“St. John Greer Ervine” enters the record as irish writer, critic and dramatist (1883–1971). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what John, Greer and Ervine can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2319515. VIAF identifies the subject as 57472715. The Library of Congress control number is n84191136. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1883, 1971 and 1911.
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This entry incorporates text from “St. John Greer Ervine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.