in March 1918, Gwynn took over as leader of the moderate nationalists in the Convention. He opposed the threat of compulsory military service during the Conscription Crisis of 1918, though as a member of the Irish Recruiting Council he continued to support voluntary recruitment, encountering intense opposition led by Sinn Féin. Latter years Stephen Gwynn formed the Irish Centre Party in 1919 and stood unsuccessfully as an Independent Nationalist for Dublin University in the December general elections. The party merged with Plunkett's Irish Dominion League to press for a settlement by consent on the basis of dominion status, but Gwynn subsequently broke with Plunkett due to his willingness to accept partition as a temporary compromise. The polarities which divided Ireland during the Anglo-Irish War and Irish Civil War increasingly sidelined Gwynn's brand of moderate cultural nationalism. Although he supported the newly emergent nation he equally condemned some of the excesses, such as the burning of houses belonging to Free State senators. Gwynn’s personal life also became complicated at this stage and around 1920, he had a romantic association with married artist Grace Henry who was perhaps the best known female artist in Ireland at the time. During this period Gwynn and Grace went travelling in France and Italy and at various stages in his life Henry painted portraits of Gwynn including a very distinguished looking Gwynn in his late 60’s or early 70’s. Their relationship contributed significantly to the separation of Henry from her artist husband Paul Henry in 1930. During this 20’s decade Gwynn also devoted himself to writing, covering political events as Irish correspondent to The Observer and The Times. Later in his career he wrote some substantial works, and together with his son Denis Gwynn (The Life of John Redmond, 1932) did much to shape the retrospective image and self-justification of John Redmond. In the mid 1930s he authored three books with a connecting theme of fishing with the artist Roy Beddington serving as illustrator: The Happy Fisherman (1936), From River to River (1937), and Two in a Valley (1938). In a review in The Guardian of the latter work, critic Gilbert Thomas wrote: 'Two in a Valley'—a handsome quarto—is the sketch-book of a successfully 'atmospheric' artist in black and white. Mr. Gwynn's accompanying letterpress, setting down the impressions of a comparative stranger in the Coln Valley, is slight, and sometimes, quite irrelevantly, he follows a red