Abrahamson, Leonard
Abrahamson, Leonard (1896–1961), doctor, was born 29 April 1896 into a Jewish family in Semiatich, latterly in Belarus, second of four children of David and Frances Abrahamson. To escape pogroms his family emigrated to Newry, Co. Down, when he was 3 years old. He was educated at the…...
Asmal, (Abdul) Kader
Asmal, (Abdul) Kader (1934–2011), human rights jurist, anti-apartheid campaigner and South African government minister, was born on 8 October 1934 in Stanger (KwaDukuza), Natal, South Africa, the youngest of eight children (six sons and two daughters) of Ahmed Asmal, grocer, and his…...
Barbour, William Pirrie ('Bill')
Barbour, William Pirrie ('Bill') (1920–2009), teacher, and community and political activist, was born in Newtownards, Co. Down, son of Walter Terence Barbour, a director of the Combe Barbour engineering firm, and his wife Blanche (née Redman), whose father owned wine shops in London…...
Bender, Philipp Philip Phineas
Bender, Philipp Philip Phineas (c.1831–1901), Jewish minister and teacher, was born in Germany, and moved (c.1851) to Hull, England, where he was appointed minister to the Jewish community. He settled (1862) in Dublin and was appointed (1863–81) a preacher at…...
Benmohel, Nathan Lazarus
Benmohel, Nathan Lazarus (1802/3–69), linguist, was born in Hamburg, Germany, son of Lazarus Benmohel (d. 1841), a rabbi, and his wife, a rabbi's daughter. He settled in Ireland c.1827–9 as a teacher of languages in Dublin. Aged twenty-nine, he entered…...
Clare, Anthony Ward
Clare, Anthony Ward (1942–2007), psychiatrist and media personality, was born 24 December 1942 in Dublin, the youngest of three children (two girls and a boy) of Bernard Clare, state solicitor with the land registry, and his wife Agnes (née Dunne). Clare recalled his father as a gentle…...
Cowan, Adrian William David
Cowan, Adrian William David (1919–96), dentist, was born 26 August 1919 in Dublin, eldest among four sons and two daughters of Alfred Cowan (fl.1890s–1960s), dentist, and ‘Lib’ (Elizabeth?) Cowan (née Nurock). He was educated in Dublin at St Andrew’s College (1928–34),…...
Crofton, Sir John Wenman
Crofton, Sir John Wenman (1912–2009), physician, scientist and public health campaigner, was born on 27 March 1912 at the family home, 55 Merrion Square South, Dublin, the only son (between two sisters) of William Mervyn Crofton, physician and bacteriologist, and his wife Mary…...
Cuffe, Ellen Odette
Cuffe, Ellen Odette (1857–1933), countess of Desart, philanthropist, and senator, was born 1 September 1857 in London into a Jewish family, eldest daughter of Henri Louis Bischoffsheim (1829–1908), millionaire banker, and Clarisse Bischoffsheim (née Biedermann), and educated privately.…...
Delmonte, (Simeon) Koert
Delmonte, (Simeon) Koert (1913–82), portrait and landscape painter, was born 15 April 1913 in van Mierlestraat, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, eldest of three children of Solomon Delmonte, banker, and his wife Nanetha, daughter of Simon Speyer, diamond merchant. His younger brother…...
Feldman, Elaine
Feldman, Elaine (1916–2006), public figure and founder of a secondary school for the Jewish community, was born on 31 March 1916 at 19 Kenilworth Park, Harold's Cross, Dublin, the second child of Maurice Freeman and his wife Ada (née Price). Maurice Freeman had come to Ireland from…...
Fleury, Eleonora Lilian
Fleury, Eleonora Lilian (1867–1960), medical doctor, was born in Manchester, England, the eldest daughter of Charles Fleury, a Waterford surgeon of Huguenot stock. Losing her mother at an early age, she appears to have been home-educated before registering as a medical student at…...
Frankau, Julia (‘Frank Danby’)
Frankau, Julia (‘Frank Danby’) (1859–1916), art historian and novelist, was born 30 July 1859 in Dublin, into an English Jewish family, seventh among nine children of Hyman Davis (d. 1871), dentist and later artist/photographer, and his wife Isabella. Her parents arrived in Dublin in…...
Glucksman, Lewis
Glucksman, Lewis (1925–2006), philanthropist and businessman, was born 22 December 1925 in New York, the second of three children of Jack Glucksman, owner of a factory that manufactured table lamps, and his wife Zipporah. His parents were second-generation Hungarian Jews. Raised in…...
Goldin, Paul
Goldin, Paul (1927–2008), entertainer and clinical psychologist, was born Ronald Paul Gold in London on 15 April 1927, the son of Charles Gold and his wife Minnie (née Elbury). The Golds were a Jewish family living in London's East End, and Paul's father may have been a psychiatrist…...
Gordon, Maurice Leonard (‘Maurie’)
Gordon, Maurice Leonard (‘Maurie’) (1910–90), sports administrator, businessman, and community activist, was born 10 January 1910 in Leeds, England, only son and elder of two children of Joseph Gordon (originally Seltzer), textile worker from Russia, and Bessie Gordon (née Bellow…...
Halliday, Fred (Simon Frederick Peter)
Halliday, Fred (Simon Frederick Peter) (1946–2009), academic, writer and public intellectual, was born on 22 February 1946 in Dublin, the youngest of three sons of Arthur Halliday, a quaker shoe manufacturer, and Margaret Mary 'Rita' Halliday (née Finigan), of Dundalk. He was educated…...
Hurwitz, Lewis (Louis) John
Hurwitz, Lewis (Louis) John (1926–71), neurologist, was born 9 February 1926, the youngest of the four sons and two daughters of Barnet Harris (‘Barney’) Hurwitz, linen merchant and president of the Belfast Jewish community, and Cana Hurwitz (née Clein), of Cork. Barney received…...
Jaffé, Sir Otto
Jaffé, Sir Otto (1846–1929), businessman and philanthropist, was born 13 August 1846 in Hamburg, Germany, third son among four sons and five daughters of Daniel Joseph Jaffé (1809–74) and his wife Frederiké. Daniel Joseph Jaffé was a merchant in the Hamburg firm of Jaffé Brothers, who…...
Johnson, Nevill
Johnson, Nevill (1911–99), artist, was born on 23 July 1911 in the family home at Buxton, Derbyshire, England, the youngest of two sons of Arthur Ernest Johnson, a wealthy cotton merchant, and his wife Florence Isobel (née Townsend). His parents' marriage ended (c.1930) over…...
Keating, May
Keating, May (1895–1965), socialist, feminist and human rights campaigner, was born Mary Josephine Walsh on 6 October 1895, in Eadestown, Rathmore, Co. Kildare, to John Walsh, who farmed 70 acres there (28.3 hectares), and his wife Martha (née Cullen), a national school teacher. Her…...
Leahy, Patrick Joseph
Leahy, Patrick Joseph (1917–98), general practitioner and medical campaigner, was born 13 March 1917 at the Mall, Thurles, Co. Tipperary, the son of William Leahy, a self-made man and architect cum engineer, and Margaret Leahy (née Doyle). One of eight children, he was born into a…...
Lewy, Ernst
Lewy, Ernst (1881–1966), linguist, was born on 19 September 1881 in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), the youngest of ten children of Jacob Lewy, a merchant, and Julia Lewy (née Bielschowsky). The family background was Jewish. Lewy attended the König-Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Breslau…...
McDowell, John William ('Jack')
McDowell, John William ('Jack') (1923?–2006), community activist and politician, was born in the Shankill Road area of Belfast. His father was a first world war veteran and member of the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP); although some of his relatives were active in the Orange…...
McGahern, John
McGahern, John (1934–2006), writer, was born in Dublin on 12 November 1934, eldest of seven children (two sons and five daughters) of Francis McGahern, garda sergeant and veteran of the Irish war of independence, from Gowna, Co. Cavan, and his wife Susan (née McManus), schoolteacher, a…...