Connolly, Sybil Veronica
Connolly, Sybil Veronica (1921–98), fashion designer, was born 24 January 1921 at Clanllienwen Road, Morriston, Swansea, Wales, elder of two daughters of John Connolly, insurance salesman, from Waterford, Ireland, and Evelyn Connolly (née Reynolds) from Wales. On the death of the…...
Connor, Jerome
Connor, Jerome (1874–1943), sculptor, craftworker, and graphic artist, was born 23 February 1874 in Coumduff, Anascaul, Co. Kerry, youngest among six surviving children (four sons, two daughters) of Patrick Connor, farmer and housebuilder, and his second wife, Margaret Connor (née…...
Conolly, Thurloe
Conolly, Thurloe (1918–2016), artist, was born in Cork city on 21 July 1918, the younger of two sons to William Joseph Conolly, a structural engineer, and his wife Constance Elizabeth Conolly (née Jeffares). According to family lore, the Conollys were descended from the eighteenth-…...
Conor, William
Conor, William (1881–1968), figure and portrait painter, was born 9 May 1881 in Fortingale Street, Belfast, the third son and fourth child of William Connor, a tinsmith and sheet-metal worker, who later became a gas fitter, and Mary Connor (née Wallace). Educated at the Clifton Park…...
Cooke, Barrie
Cooke, Barrie (1931–2014), artist, was born William Barrie Cooke on 13 June 1931 in a nursing home at Sandiway Road, Ashton-upon-Mersey, England, the elder of two sons of William Barrie, company director, and his American wife, Gladys (née Judge). His father ran the family business, an…...
Cooley, Thomas
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Cooper, Austin
Cooper, Austin (b. c.1614, d. a.1690), gardener and strongman, inherited property from his father at Byfleet in Surrey. His father or another relative is said to have held a court appointment under Charles I. Cooper purchased land in England from a Cromwellian…...
Coppin, Louisa (Little Weesy)
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Cosgrave, Mary Josephine
Cosgrave, Mary Josephine (c.1877–1941), social worker and local politician, was born in Naas, Co. Kildare, the daughter of James William Daly and Jane Daly. Educated at St Mary's Convent in Naas, she went on to study at St Andrews University, from where she graduated LLA…...
Costello, Mary Ann
Costello, Mary Ann (1747–1827), actress and mother of the British prime minister George Canning, was born in Ireland, daughter of Jordan Costello, a Connacht squire. Apparently orphaned at an early age, she was brought up in the care of her maternal grandfather, Col. Guydickens, in…...
Costello, Michael (‘The Amazing Blondini’)
Costello, Michael (‘The Amazing Blondini’) (1922–96), fairground performer and escapologist, was born at a fairground in Dublin in August 1922; both his parents were fairground novelty acts from Tralee, his father a strong man and his mother a fortune teller. He had no formal…...
Cotter (alias O'Brien), Patrick
Cotter (alias O'Brien), Patrick (1760/61–1806), giant and showman, was born at Belgooly, near Kinsale, Co. Cork. His parents were farmers; while no details of his father are available, his mother was still alive at the time of his death and is named in his will as Margaret Cotter…...
Coulter, William Alexander
Coulter, William Alexander (1849–1936), painter, was born on 7 March 1849 in Glenariff, Co. Antrim, the son of James Coulter, a coastguard, originally from Co. Down, and his wife Sarah, an Irish-speaker from the glens of Antrim. He grew up in a catholic family along the east Antrim…...
Courtenay, Ellen
Courtenay, Ellen (1802–c.1837), accuser of Daniel O'Connell (qv), was born in Co. Cork, daughter of a native of the county. In 1817, at the age of 15, she moved to Dublin, and the catholic bishop of Cork,…...
Cowley, John Ultan
Cowley, John Ultan (1923–98) actor and animal welfare activist, was born 8 September 1923 in Ardbraccan, Navan, Co. Meath, the third child of Patrick Cowley, a small farmer, and his wife Margaret. Educated at the local national school, he left at the age of thirteen to work on the…...
Cox, (Christina Mary) Kathleen
Cox, (Christina Mary) Kathleen (1904–72), artist, sculptor, and mystic, was born 2 July 1904 in Wo Sung, China, eldest daughter of Irish parents. Her father, Dr R. H. Cox, of Dundalk, the port health officer at Shanghai, was an amateur geologist and modelled in clay; on retirement,…...
Cox, Walter
Cox, Walter (c.1770–1837), journalist and informer, was the son of a Co. Meath or Westmeath blacksmith and his wife, a Dease of Summerhill. He was apprenticed in turn to – or at least worked as an ‘inlayer’ for – two Dublin gunsmiths, Daniel Muley and Benjamin Powell, and…...
Craig, James Humbert
Craig, James Humbert (1877–1944), landscape painter, was born 12 July 1877 at 16 Brougham St., Belfast, second of five children and the only son of Alexander Craig, wholesale merchant, and his wife Marie Metezzen, a Swiss national, who had married in Belfast in 1874. Soon after…...
Craig, Mary (‘May’)
Craig, Mary (‘May’) (c.1889–1972), actress, was born in Dublin, younger of two surviving daughters of David Craig, an engineer, and his wife Emma. As a child she enjoyed regular trips with her mother to see operas and plays in the Dublin theatres. Later famous for her…...
Cranwill, Maria (‘Mia’)
Cranwill, Maria (‘Mia’) (1880–1972), design and metal artist, was born 1 March 1880 at 3 Charlotte Place, Drumcondra, Dublin, daughter of Arthur Cranwill, analytical chemist, and Frances Cranwill (née Holland). Her father, an enthusiastic Parnellite, was treasurer of the Irish…...
Crawford, John Wallace
Crawford, John Wallace (1847–1917), frontier scout, writer and entertainer, was born 4 March 1847 in Carndonagh, Co. Donegal, the son of John Austin Crawford, a Glasgow tailor, and Susie Wallace. His father moved to Minersville, Pennsylvania, to work in the coalmines in 1854; his mother…...
Cregan, Martin
Cregan, Martin (1788–1870), portrait painter, was born in Co. Meath and reared by foster parents named Creggan, of Martinstown, Co. Meath, whose name he adopted but later altered to Cregan. As a boy he was placed in the service of the Stewarts of Killymoon, Co. Tyrone, who…...
Crist, Gainor Steven
Crist, Gainor Steven (1922–64), bohemian and Dublin ‘character’, was born on Shafer Boulevard in Dayton, Ohio, USA, on 1 August 1922, the only child of Dr Damian Crist (d. 1952) and his wife, Helen (d. 1928), ballerina, the daughter of Alfred Mannassau of Canada and Chicago, a well…...
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…...
Crone, Robert
Crone, Robert (c.1718–1779), landscape painter, was born in Dublin. He trained under Robert West (qv) in the Dublin Society's drawing-school in George's Lane, receiving prizes in 1748 and 1750. He was also a pupil of the portrait…...