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…...
Cole, Sir William
Cole, Sir William (1571?–1653), English soldier and planter, was the only son of Emmanuel Cole, third son of Thomas Cole of London, and appears to have been raised in Devonshire. He may have studied at Cambridge, graduating BA and…...
Cromwell, Henry
Cromwell, Henry (1628–74), soldier and administrator, was born 20 January 1628 at Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, England, fourth son of Oliver Cromwell (qv) and Elizabeth Cromwell (née Bourchier). He fought only in the closing stages of…...
Fleetwood, Charles
Fleetwood, Charles (d. 1692), soldier and lord deputy of Ireland, was third son of Sir Miles Fleetwood of Aldwincle, Northamptonshire, England, and his wife Anne, daughter of Nicholas Luke of Woodend, Bedfordshire. After being admitted to Gray's Inn (30 November 1638), he became a…...
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…...
Henry, Robert Mitchell
Henry, Robert Mitchell (1873–1950), classicist and university administrator, was born 11 February 1873 in Belfast, son of Robert Mitchell Henry (1824–91), who was himself son of a Reformed Presbyterian minister, William Henry (1789–1852). Robert M. Henry sen., having started his…...
Hughes, Brendan
Hughes, Brendan (1948–2008), IRA activist, was born at Blackwater Street off the Grosvenor Road in west Belfast in June 1948, the second of six children (five boys and one girl) of Kevin Barry Hughes, a builders' labourer. A great-grandfather was an IRA member in Co. Louth wounded in…...
Ireton, Henry
Ireton, Henry (1611–51), soldier and lord deputy of Ireland, was the eldest son in the resolutely puritan gentry family of German and Jane Ireton of Attenborough, near Nottingham. Baptised on 3 November 1611, he was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, graduating in 1629, and…...
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…...
Keenan, Brian Paschal
Keenan, Brian Paschal (1941–2008), republican paramilitary, was born on 17 July 1941, in Dysert, Draperstown, Co. Londonderry, one of six children of Henry Keenan, an accountant, and his wife Jean (née McAlea). During the second world war Keenan's father served at Pocklington air base (…...
La Touche, David Digues I
La Touche, David Digues I (1671–1745), soldier and businessman, was born 15 November 1671, fourth son among six sons and three daughters of Denis Digues, seigneur de la Touche et de la Motte, nobleman, and his second wife Madeleine Digues (née Deplanche) of Château de la Touche,…...
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…...
McGrath, William
McGrath, William (1916–91), loyalist and paedophile, was born 11 December 1916 in Belfast, son of Abraham McGrath and Jane McGrath (née Warrington). McGrath came from a methodist background; in later years he worked with presbyterian and Free Presbyterian churches while operating as a…...
O'Brien, Donal Cruise
O'Brien, Donal Cruise (1941–2012), political scientist, was born in Dublin on 4 July 1941, eldest of two daughters and a son of Conor Cruise O'Brien (qv), diplomat, politician and writer, and his first wife Christine (née Foster). He…...
O'Connally, Owen, (O'Connolly, Connolly)
O'Connally, Owen, (O'Connolly, Connolly) (d. 1649), plot discloser and parliamentarian army officer, was born into a Gaelic Irish family, probably in Co. Monaghan. He converted to protestantism in the household of the English planter Sir Hugh Clotworthy (d. 1630), and served both…...
Pearse, James
Pearse, James (1839–1900), sculptor, was born on 8 December 1839 at 24 Plumtree Street, Bloomsbury, London, the second of three sons of James Pearse, frame-maker, and his first wife Mary Ann (née Thompson). The family was impoverished and moved to Birmingham (c.1847), where…...
Rocque, John (Jean)
Rocque, John (Jean) (c.1704–1762), cartographer, surveyor, and landscape designer, was born in France into a huguenot family of four children. After spending some time in Geneva, Rocque arrived in England (c.1709). His earliest published works, consisting mainly…...
Tabary, James
Tabary, James (fl. 1650–87), sculptor, was born in France of huguenot origins. He is almost certainly the ‘Jacques Tabouré’ who was admitted to the academy of St Luke, Paris, in August 1655. His two brothers, Louis and John, were also carvers. Sculptors with the surname…...
Teate, Faithful
Teate, Faithful (d. 1660) puritan minister and vice-provost of TCD, was born around the start of the seventeenth century. Little is known of his background but he was probably born in England, possibly in Kent, before coming to…...
Venables, Robert
Venables, Robert (1612?–1687), soldier, was the son of Robert Venables of Antrobus, Cheshire, England, and his wife Ellen, daughter of Richard Simcox of Rudheath. He joined the parliamentarian army on the outbreak of the English civil war in 1642 and was captured at the battle of…...
Winter, Samuel
Winter, Samuel (1603–66), Independent minister and provost of TCD, was born in the parish of Hampton-in-Arden, Warwickshire, England, son of Christopher Winter, yeoman. He was educated at the free school in Coventry before proceeding to…...