John Banim

Irish author

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June 18, 2026

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John and Michael Banim were brothers who collaborated on novels and stories depicting Irish peasant life. John studied drawing and worked as a journalist, while Michael studied law but took over his father's business. Their joint work, Tales, by the O’Hara Family (1825), was immediately successful, earning John the nickname "the Scott of Ireland."1

John Banim also wrote The Boyne Water (1826), a novel about the Jacobite wars, and The Nowlans (1826), a story exploring passion and guilt. Michael Banim contributed significantly to The Croppy (1828), which focused on the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and Father Connell (1835), considered the Banims' happiest book. Despite John's struggles with illness and poverty, the brothers continued to write, contributing to Irish literature with their often historically-based and politically insightful works.12

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John and Michael Banim
John studied drawing in Dublin and subsequently taught it in Kilkenny. Shortly afterward he went to Dublin, where he earned a living by journalism. In 1821 his blank verse tragedy, Damon and Pythias, was produced at Covent Garden; John married, moved to London, and continued…
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John studied drawing in Dublin and subsequently taught it in Kilkenny. Shortly afterward he went to Dublin, where he earned a living by journalism. In 1821 his blank verse tragedy, Damon and Pythias, was produced at Covent Garden; John married, moved to London, and continued…
Read More

Irish literature
Roman Catholic writers
Brothers John and Michael Banim, who sometimes published jointly under the pseudonym “the O’Hara Brothers,” produced a series of novels and tales often historical and always politically pessimistic, as are John’s The Boyne Water (1826), set in Ulster during the Jacobite war of 1688–91, and Michael’s…
Read More
Brothers John and Michael Banim, who sometimes published jointly under the pseudonym “the O’Hara Brothers,” produced a series of novels and tales often historical and always politically pessimistic, as are John’s The Boyne Water (1826), set in Ulster during the Jacobite war of 1688–91, and Michael’s…
Read More