Alexander, Eleanor Jane (Nell)
This is a co-subject for the entry on Alexander, Cecil Frances. View the original entry....
Balfour, Mary E.
Balfour, Mary E. (fl. 1789–1810), poet, was born on 24 January; one source gives the year as 1755. However, if – as seems likely – she was the eldest daughter of John Balfour (who seems to have been a doctor in Derry city before becoming a clergyman in 1789, and who…...
Battier, Henrietta
Battier, Henrietta (Fleming ) (1751?–1813), poet and satirist. Little is known of Battier's background, other than she was the daughter of John Fleming of Staholmock, Co. Meath. In November 1768 she married in Carnarvon, north Wales, Capt. John Gaspard (Gasper, Gaspar) Battier, 5th…...
Bennis, Elizabeth (Eliza)
Bennis, Elizabeth (Eliza) (1725–1802), methodist activist and diarist, was probably born in Limerick, one of two surviving daughters of Isaac and Alice (née Mitchell) Patten . The Pattens were presbyterian, and Elizabeth had a conventionally pious upbringing and evidently received…...
Bielenberg, Christabel Mary Harmsworth
Bielenberg, Christabel Mary Harmsworth (1909–2003), writer, was born on 18 June 1909 at the Old House, Totteridge, Hertfordshire, England, the second of four children (two boys and two girls) of Percy Collingwood Burton (1879–1953) of Totteridge, a British army officer and advertising…...
Booth, Eva Selina Gore-
Booth, Eva Selina Gore- (1870–1926), poet, mystic, trade unionist and suffragist, was born on 22 May 1870 at Lissadell, Co. Sligo, the second of three daughters (and two sons) of Sir Henry Gore-Booth, 5th baronet and Arctic explorer, and his wife, Georgina (née Hill) of Tickhill castle…...
Bury, Lady Mairi (Elizabeth)
Bury, Lady Mairi (Elizabeth) (1921–2009), gardener and philatelist, was born 25 March 1921 at Mount Stewart, Co. Down, youngest of four daughters and one son of Charles Stewart Henry Vane-Tempest Stewart (qv…...
Cary (Tanfield), Elizabeth
Cary (Tanfield), Elizabeth (1585–1639), Viscountess Falkland , writer and translator, was born at Burford Priory, Oxfordshire, the only child and heir of Lawrence Tanfield (c.1551–1625), a wealthy lawyer, later appointed chief baron of the exchequer, and his wife,…...
Chatterton, (Henrietta) Georgiana
Chatterton, (Henrietta) Georgiana (1806–76), writer, was born 11 November 1806 at 24 Arlington Street, Piccadilly, London, the only child of the Rev. Lascelles Iremonger , prebendary of Winchester cathedral, and Harriet, sister of Admiral Lord Gambier. Educated primarily by a…...
Chetwood, Anna Maria
Chetwood, Anna Maria (1774–1870), writer, was born on 7 February 1774, a daughter of the Rev. John Chetwood of Glanmire, Co. Cork (1742–1814), and Elizabeth Chetwood (née Hamilton) (d. 1826?), and great-granddaughter of Knightley Chetwood of Woodbrook, Portarlington, a friend of…...
Cloney, Sheila
Cloney, Sheila (1926–2009), protagonist in the Fethard-on-Sea boycott, was born Sheila Kelly on 6 May 1926 in Fethard-on-Sea, a village on the Hook peninsula of south-western Co. Wexford, daughter of Thomas Kelly, cattle dealer, of John's Hill (just outside Fethard), and his wife Sheila…...
Conyngham, Melosina Anne Lenox-
Conyngham, Melosina Anne Lenox- (1941–2011), traveller and writer, was born on 22 February 1941 in Ceylon (latterly, Sri Lanka). Her father, Gerald Hamilton Lenox-Conyngham, a tea planter in Wattegoda, in the south of the island, was descended from an Ulster ascendancy family and…...
Croker, Bithia Mary (‘B. M.’)
Croker, Bithia Mary (‘B. M.’) (née Sheppard ) (c.1849–1920), novelist and short-story writer, was born in Roscommon, the youngest daughter of the Rev. William Sheppard (d. 1856), Church of Ireland clergyman for the parish of Kilgeffin, Co. Roscommon. She was educated in…...
Cusack, Margaret Anna (‘The nun of Kenmare’)
Cusack, Margaret Anna (‘The nun of Kenmare’) (1829–99), nun and author, was born 6 May 1829 at Coolock, Co. Dublin, the elder of two children of Dr Samuel Cusack and his wife, Sarah (née Stoney). Early life and conversion to catholicism She was educated privately, learning informally…...
Devlin, Edith Florence Newman
Devlin, Edith Florence Newman (1926–2012), lecturer in English, was born on 21 September 1926, in Swords, Co. Dublin, the youngest among three sons and two daughters of Hugh Gaw and Eva Gaw (née Newman). Her mother was a teacher in a Church of Ireland primary school, and her father, who…...
Donnellan, Anne
Donnellan, Anne (c.1700–62), literary critic, and promoter of literature, learning, and the arts, was the daughter of Nehemiah Donnellan (qv), MP and chief baron of the Irish exchequer (c.1702–05), by his…...
Drew, Catherine
Drew, Catherine (1832–1910), journalist and writer, was born 27 May 1832 in Broughshane, Co. Antrim, the third of eight daughters of the Rev. Thomas Drew (qv), DD, curate of the joint parish of St Patricks, Skerry and Racavan in Broughshane (…...
Du Bois, Lady Dorothea
Du Bois, Lady Dorothea (Annesley ) (1728–74), poet, novelist, and playwright, was born in Dublin, the eldest of seven daughters of Richard Annesley (qv), Lord Altham, later 6th earl of Anglesey, and his wife, Ann (née Simpson),…...
Elmes, Mary
Elmes, Mary (1908–2002), humanitarian worker 'righteous among the nations', was born Marie Elizabeth Jean Elmes on 5 May 1908, at Culgreine, 120 Blackrock Road, Ballintemple, Cork, the home of her parents, Edward Thomas Elmes, a pharmacist, and his wife Elizabeth Octavia (née Waters…...
Fitzgerald, (Fanny Louisa) Geraldine Penrose-
Fitzgerald, (Fanny Louisa) Geraldine Penrose- (1846–1939), novelist and catholic convert, was born 27 January 1846, youngest daughter of Robert Uniacke Penrose-Fitzgerald and his wife Frances Matilda (née Austen); she had at least three brothers and one sister. The Penrose-…...
Graves, Clotilde Inez Mary (‘Richard Dehan’)
Graves, Clotilde Inez Mary (‘Richard Dehan’) (1863–1932), novelist, dramatist, and journalist, was born 3 June 1863 at Buttevant barracks, Co. Cork, the third daughter of Major W. H. Graves and Antoinette Graves (née Deane). Her father was a cousin of the journalist and critic…...
Grierson (Crawley), Constantia
Grierson (Crawley), Constantia (c.1705–1732), editor, scholar, and one of Swift's female literary circle, was born Constantia Crawley in Graiguenamanagh, Co. Kilkenny, into a poor family. Little is known of her early life or education, save from the memoirs of her friend…...
Gunning, Elizabeth
This is a co-subject for the entry on Gunning, Maria. View the original entry....
Gunning, Maria
Gunning, Maria (1732–60), afterwards countess of Coventry , society beauty, eldest of the four daughters of John Gunning of Castlecoote, Co. Roscommon, and Bridget Gunning (née Bourke), daughter of the 6th Viscount Bourke of Mayo, was born at Hemingford Grey, near St Ives,…...
Harmsworth, Geraldine Mary
Harmsworth, Geraldine Mary (1838–1925), matriarch, was born 24 December 1838 in Dublin, fifth child and daughter among eight children of William Maffett of Co. Down and Dublin, and his second wife, Margaret (née Finlayson) of Dublin, whom he had married in 1831. By his first marriage (…...