Denham, Sir John
Denham, Sir John (1615–69), poet and architect, was born in Dublin, the only son of Sir John Denham (qv), lord chief justice of Ireland 1612–17, and his wife Eleanor, daughter of Sir Garret…...
Devane, Andrew (‘Andy’)
Devane, Andrew (‘Andy’) (1917–2000), architect, was born 3 November 1917 at 1 Upper Hartstonge St. in the heart of Limerick city, the eldest of four sons of John Francis Devane, medical doctor, and his wife Vera (née Keogh). He was educated at Belvedere College, Dublin, from which he…...
Dicuil (Dícuil(l))
Dicuil (Dícuil(l)) (c.760–p.825), Irish scholar-exile at the courts of Charles the Great and Louis the Pious, was an important author of several works on geography, computus, grammar, and astronomy. The only details of his life that are known are what can be…...
Dillon (De Leon), Thomas
Dillon (De Leon), Thomas (1613–90), Jesuit and scholar, was born in Ireland and educated in Spain. In 1627 he entered the Society of Jesus in Seville. He taught philosophy and then scholastic and moral theology at the society's colleges at Seville and Granada. In 1640 he was…...
Dillon, Emile Joseph
Dillon, Emile Joseph (1854–1933), journalist, philologist, and author, was born 21 March 1854 in Dublin, only son of Michael Dillon, merchant, and Mary Dillon (née Byrne). Despite the earnest wishes of his father that he enter the priesthood, he embarked on a wide-ranging,…...
Dillon, Myles Patrick
Dillon, Myles Patrick (1900–72), Celtic and Sanskrit scholar, was born 11 April 1900 in Dublin, third son among five sons and one daughter of the Irish nationalist leader John Dillon (qv) and his wife Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the Rt Hon.…...
Dill, Sir Samuel
Dill, Sir Samuel (1844–1924), classical scholar, historian, and educationalist, was born 26 March 1844 at Hillsborough, Co. Down, eldest son of the Rev. Marcus Dill, DD, presbyterian minister of Hillsborough, and Anna Dill (née Moreland). He…...
Dodds, Eric Robertson
Dodds, Eric Robertson (1893–1979), classical scholar, was born 26 July 1893 at Banbridge, Co. Down, only child of Robert Dodds, headmaster of Banbridge Academy, and Anne Fleming Dodds (née Allen), a teacher. His father's family were northern presbyterians, his mother's smallish Anglo-…...
Donatus
Donatus (d. 876), Irish scholar and ecclesiastic born at the end of the eighth century, was elected bishop of Fiesole, near Florence, in 829. The tenth/ eleventh-century ‘Vita sancti Donati episcopi’ has little biographical detail, and almost nothing is known of Donatus's Irish…...
Donatus Ortigraphus
Donatus Ortigraphus (fl. c.815) was an anonymous grammarian in the Carolingian empire, whose sobriquet is taken from the incipit to his catena of Latin grammatical excerpts. His grammar (essentially a teacher's manual) is arranged in catechetical form as a…...
Dottin, Henri-Georges
Dottin, Henri-Georges (1863–1928), philologist and Celticist, was born 29 October 1863 at Liancourt, in the Oise department of northern France, son of Henri Dottin, public official, and Marie Dottin (née Pourcelle). He was educated in Laval College and afterwards at the University of…...
Drew, Sir Thomas
Drew, Sir Thomas (1838–1910), architect and antiquary, was born 18 September 1838 at Victoria Place, Belfast, into the large family of the Rev. Dr Thomas Drew (qv), son of a Limerick grocer, and Isabella Drew (née Dalton; 1802–69), daughter…...
Dubthach
Dubthach (d. p. 869), son of Máel-tuile and scribe and author of computistical verses, was one of the group of Irish and Frankish scholars associated with Sedulius Scottus (qv) in the mid ninth century, during…...
Ducart, Davis
Ducart, Davis (fl. c.1760–85), engineer and architect, was probably born in Savoy. Contemporary variations of his name include Daviso de Arcort and Davis Duckart. His family background is obscure; one possibility is that he grew up in Piedmont and later served as a military…...
Duff, Thomas
Duff, Thomas (c.1792–1848), architect, was born in Newry, Co. Down. Nothing is known of his parentage and early life, except that he was a catholic. It is possible that he was the ‘Thomas Duffe’ who won a prize at the Dublin Society (1805) for an architectural design. It…...
Duncaht (Dúnchad)
Duncaht (Dúnchad) (fl. 9th cent.) of Reims, scribe and scholar, may perhaps be identified with Donnacán son of Máel Tuile who died in Italy in 843, according to a note in the Karlsruhe manuscript of Bede's ‘Computus’. The incipit to a fragmentary computus in the…...
Dúngal
Dúngal (d. p. 830), formerly thought to have been a composite figure of two or even three separate personalities associated with Saint-Denis, Pavia and Bobbio, was an Irish scholar-poet in the service of a succession of Carolingian monarchs. He is first mentioned in a…...
Ensor, George
This is a co-subject for the entry on Ensor, John. View the original entry....
Ensor, John
Ensor, John (d. 1787), architect and developer, travelled as a young man from Coventry, England, to Ireland in the 1730s with his younger brother George. Their parents are said to have been Job Ensor and his wife Mary Hill. John was associated with…...
Esposito, Mario
Esposito, Mario (1887–1975), medievalist and Hiberno-Latinist, was born 7 September 1887 in Blackrock, Co. Dublin, third child and only son of Michele Esposito (qv), professor of music in the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and Natalia…...
Falloon, Cecil Samuel Gordon ('Paddy')
Falloon, Cecil Samuel Gordon ('Paddy') (1911–2003), businessman, hotelier, and restorer of historic buildings, was born 10 July 1911 in Camly Macullagh, a townland near Newtownhamilton in south Co. Armagh, younger son and youngest of four children of Samuel Falloon, farmer, and his…...
Ferdomnach
Ferdomnach (d. 845) was chief scribe of the monastery of Armagh in the first half of the ninth century and scribe of the Book of Armagh. Although an unprinted genealogy of Ferdomnach, tracing his descent back twenty-three generations, is preserved in the Book of Lecan, nothing…...
FitzGerald, Desmond
FitzGerald, Desmond (1911–87), architect, was born 5 November 1911 at Saint-Jean-du-Doigt (Finisterre) in Brittany, France, eldest of four sons of Desmond FitzGerald (qv), writer and future minister for external affairs in…...
Fitzmaurice, Gerald Henry
Fitzmaurice, Gerald Henry (1865–1939), consular official and linguist, was born 15 July 1865 in Dublin, son of Henry Fitzmaurice, tea and commission agent, of Howth, Co. Dublin, and Margaret Fitzmaurice (née McKenny); he had one younger sister. He was educated at University…...
Fitzsimons, Jack
Fitzsimons, Jack (1930–2014), architect, writer and politician, was born on 26 April 1930 in the county home at Trim, Co. Meath, one of a family of six of John (Jack) Fitzsimons, a farm labourer, and Annie Fitzsimons (née Monaghan), a former domestic servant, living at Kilbeg,…...