Banim

Banim, JOHN, Irish novelist, born at Kilkenny in 1798, in 1813 went up to Dublin to study art, and two years later became a drawing-master in his native town. His youth was darkened by an unhappy love-affair; but having achieved some success as a playwright (1821), having married, and settled in London, he produced, in conjunction with his brother Michael, the Tales of the O'Hara Family (6 vols. 1825-26), which were followed by The Croppy, The Denowned, The Smuggler, The Mayor of Windgap, Father Connell, &c. In 1836 general sympathy having been attracted towards Banim's privations, occasioned by disease that precluded all literary exertion, a pension of £150 was awarded him, which was afterwards further increased by £40 for the education of his daughter, an only child. He died in poverty, 13th August 1842, at Windgap Cottage, near Kilkenny. His brother Michael was born in 1796, and died 30th August 1874. Banim failed in his attempt to portray the manners and frivolities of the higher classes; but none of his predecessors—Miss Edgeworth, Lady Morgan, or Crofton Croker—succeeded in depicting so vividly and truly the Irish peasant, with his picturesque peculiarities in his sufferings and errors. Although generally happy in the plot and development of his story, he is too much disposed to dwell on the horrible. His denunciations may be well founded, but they mar the poetic effect. Banim was also not quite free from a somewhat tiresome minuteness of description, and his imitation of Scott is frequently very palpable. See P. J. Murray's Life of John Banim (1857).