Connellan, Thomas
Connellan, Thomas (1625/40–c.1700), harpist and composer, was born in Cloonamahon, Collooney, Co. Sligo. Though details of his life remain obscure, he was reputedly the most accomplished predecessor of…...
Connell, James (‘Jim’)
Connell, James (‘Jim’) (1852–1929), socialist and author of ‘The red flag’, was born 27 March 1852 in Killskyre, Crossakiel, Co. Meath, eldest of thirteen children of Thomas and Anne O'Connell, tenant farmers. His father later became a groom for the earl of Rosse at Birr, King's Co…...
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…...
Cooke, Thomas Simpson
Cooke, Thomas Simpson (1782–1848), musician and composer, was the son of Bartlett Cooke, a noted oboist. Trained in music by his father from an early age, he was later a pupil of the prominent Italian musician Tommaso Giordani. In 1791, at the age of 9, Cooke joined Weichsell…...
Cooley, Thomas
This is a co-subject for the entry on Cooley, Thomas. View the original entry....
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…...
Cousser (Kusser), John (Johann) Sigismond
Cousser (Kusser), John (Johann) Sigismond (1660?–1727), composer and master of the king's music in Ireland, was born in Pressburg (later Bratislava) and baptised on 13 February 1660, the son of a Hungarian cantor and composer. In 1674 he moved with his parents and sister to Stuttgart…...
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,…...
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…...
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…...
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…...
Croker, Thomas Crofton
Croker, Thomas Crofton (1798–1854), antiquary and folklorist, was born 15 January 1798 in Buckingham Square, Cork city, the only son of Thomas Croker, major in the army, and his wife Maria, widow of a Mr Fitton; she was daughter and co-heir of Croker Dillon of Baltidaniel, Co. Cork, a…...
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…...
Cronin, Elizabeth (‘Bess’)
Cronin, Elizabeth (‘Bess’) (1879–1956), folk singer, was born 30 May 1879, the eldest of the five children of Seán ‘Máistir’ Ó hIarfhlaithe and Maighréad Ní Thuama. Her father was headmaster in the school of Barr d'Ínse in the Fuhirees area of West Cork, near the Cork–Kerry border.…...
Crookshank, Anne Olivia
Crookshank, Anne Olivia (1927–2016), art historian, was born in Whiteabbey, Co. Antrim, on 3 January 1927, the second of three daughters to Henry Crookshank, a geographical surveyor, and his wife Eileen ‘Kitty’ Crookshank (née Somerville-Large). For the first five years of her life Anne…...
Crotty, Elizabeth (‘Lizzie’)
Crotty, Elizabeth (‘Lizzie’) (née Markham ) (1885–1960), concertina player, was born 8 January 1886 at Gower, Cooraclare, Co. Clare, the youngest in the large family of Michael Markham, farmer, and Margaret Markham (née Keane). She attended national school in Cooraclare (1893–9).…...
Crowley, (Mary) Patricia
Crowley, (Mary) Patricia (1933–2013), fashion designer, was born on 17 May 1933, in Taylor's Hill, Galway, the daughter of Hubert Vernon , who worked in a local branch of the Bank of Ireland, and Margaret ('Netta') Vernon (née Morrissey), daughter of a prosperous family of grain…...
Crowley, Nicholas Joseph
Crowley, Nicholas Joseph (1819–57), portrait and subject painter, was born 6 December 1819 in Dublin, the third son of Peter Crowley (d. 1835), a propertied gentleman. As a child he was something of an artistic prodigy. He received his first art training in 1827 at the…...
Cullen, Luke
Cullen, Luke (1793–1859), Carmelite brother and collector of reminiscences of the rebellions of 1798 and 1803, was born at Little Bray in the parish of Cabinteely, Co. Dublin, and spent much of his youth at his grandfather's house at Glenbrien, near Gorey, Co. Wexford. At the age…...
Culwick, Florence
Culwick, Florence (1877–1929), director of the Culwick choir, was born 4 November 1877 at 21 Upper Lesson Street, Dublin, the daughter of James Cooksey Culwick, professor of music, and Mary Jane (née Richardson), his second wife. Florence was educated at Alexandra College, Dublin,…...
Cuming, William
Cuming, William (1769–1852), portrait and history painter, was the youngest of four sons of William Cuming of Dublin and his wife, whose maiden name was Hamilton. As a child he visited the workshops of the coach and herald painters in Moore Street, Dublin, and decided that he wanted…...