Furniss, Harry
Furniss, Harry (1854–1925), illustrator and caricaturist, was born 26 March 1854 in Wexford town, youngest son of James Furniss, civil engineer, originally from Hathersage, Derbyshire, and his second wife Isabella Cornelia, daughter of Eneas McKenzie, topographer, of Newcastle upon…...
Gahan, (Winifred) Muriel Françoise
Gahan, (Winifred) Muriel Françoise (1897–1995), promoter of cooperation and traditional crafts, was born 27 October 1897 at Magherabeg House, near Donegal town, the second daughter of (Fredrick George) Townsend Gahan, a civil engineer with the Congested Districts Board, and…...
Gandy, James
Gandy, James (1619–89), portrait painter, was born in Exeter, England, and is thought to have been a pupil or assistant of Sir Anthony Van Dyck (d. 1641). He was one of the many artists influenced by the French and Dutch schools, and he moved to Ireland (1662) with his patron the…...
Gandy, William
This is a co-subject for the entry on Gandy, James. View the original entry....
Geddes, Wilhelmina Margaret
Geddes, Wilhelmina Margaret (1887–1955), stained-glass artist, was born 25 May 1887 at her maternal grandparents’ home, Drumreilly, Co. Leitrim, eldest of four children of Belfast-born William Geddes, site engineer with the Sligo, Leitrim, and Northern Counties Railway, and Eliza Geddes…...
Gibbings, Robert John
Gibbings, Robert John (1889–1958), engraver, illustrator, and author, was born 23 March 1889 in Co. Cork, son of the Rev. Edward Gibbings, rector of Carrigrohane, and Caroline Gibbings (née Day). He was educated at boarding schools in Fermoy and Cork before entering…...
Gifford, Grace (Evelyn)
Gifford, Grace (Evelyn) (1888–1955), cartoonist and republican, was born 4 March 1888 at 8 Temple Villas, Palmerston Park, Rathmines, Dublin, one of twelve children of Frederick Gifford, a wealthy solicitor, and Isabella Gifford (née Burton), a niece of the artist Sir…...
Gilbert, Irene
Gilbert, Irene (c.1910–1985), fashion designer, was born in Thurles, Co. Tipperary. Both in private conversation and public interview she was always secretive and little is therefore known of her parentage or early life, although on one occasion she did explain that while…...
Gill, Mollie (Ní Giolla, Máire)
Gill, Mollie (Ní Giolla, Máire) (1891–1977), camogie player and administrator, was born Mary Anne Gill on 24 March 1891 at Murphystown, near Leopardstown, in south Co. Dublin, the daughter of James Gill, a shoe-maker, and his wife Jane (neé Daly). Census records suggest that she was the…...
Gleeson, Evelyn
Gleeson, Evelyn (1855–1944), designer, was born 15 May 1855 in Knutsford, Cheshire, the daughter of Irish-born Edward Moloney Gleeson, a medical doctor. Her father had a practice in Knutsford but on a trip to Ireland he was struck by the poverty and unemployment and, with the advice…...
Gordon, William Robert
Gordon, William Robert (1872–1955), painter, was born 19 August 1872 at Ballynahinch, Co. Down, the son of William Gordon, a gardener, and Nancy Gordon (née Moffat). He was educated at the Southwell school, Downpatrick, before going to England at age 14 to work in the Port Sunlight…...
Goulding, Sir William Basil
Goulding, Sir William Basil (1909–82), 3rd baronet, businessman and modernist, was born 4 November 1909 at Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin, the elder of two sons of Sir William Lingard Amphlett Goulding (qv) and his wife Nesta Violet (née Wright). Educated at Winchester…...
Goulet, Yann Renard-
Goulet, Yann Renard- (1914–99), artist and sculptor, was born Jean Gustave Réné Goulet on 20 August 1914 at Saint-Nazaire, Brittany, France, son of Gustave Goulet, hotelier and chef. After being educated locally he began studying architecture before winning a scholarship to the…...
Gray, Eileen
Gray, Eileen (1878–1976), furniture designer and architect, was born 9 August 1878 at the family home, Brownswood House near Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, youngest child and third daughter of James McLaren Smith , son of Richard Smith of Hazelgreen and his wife Eveleen, only child of…...
Green, William Spotswood
Green, William Spotswood (1847–1919), marine scientist, was born 10 September 1847 in Youghal, Co. Cork, the only son and eldest of six children of Charles Green, JP, merchant of Youghal, and his wife Catherine Frances, daughter of Walter…...
Gregory, (William) Robert
Gregory, (William) Robert (1881–1918), painter, theatre designer, sportsman, and airman, was born 20 May 1881 in London, only child of Sir William Gregory (qv) of Coole Park, Co. Galway, and his second wife, Isabella Augusta…...
Grogan, Nathaniel
Grogan, Nathaniel (c.1740–1807), painter, was born in Cork, son of a woodturner and blockmaker; nothing else is known of his parents. Though apprenticed to his father, he began to show some aptitude for drawing using chalks, the only materials available to him. He received…...
Gubbins, Beatrice
Gubbins, Beatrice (1878–1944), watercolour artist and traveller, was born 19 September 1878 in Co. Limerick, the youngest of the two sons and five daughters of Thomas Wise Gubbins, distiller, and his wife, Frances Gertrude (née Russell) of Askeaton, Co. Limerick. The family moved to…...
Guinness, Mary Catherine (‘May’)
Guinness, Mary Catherine (‘May’) (1863–1955), painter, was born 11 March 1863 in Rathfarnham, Co. Dublin, third among seven children and eldest of three daughters of Thomas Hosea Guinness, solicitor, of Tibradden House, Rathfarnham, and his wife Mary, only daughter and heiress of…...
Gyles, Althea
Gyles, Althea (1868–1949), poet and artist, was born in Kilmurry, Co. Waterford. Her father, George Gyles, came from a well-connected Anglo-Irish family, who, according to W. B. Yeats (qv), were ‘so haughty that their neighbours…...
Halpin, George
Halpin, George (1774×1779–1854), civil engineer and lighthouse designer, was probably born in Leinster. Little is known of his life before his appointment (1800) by the ballast board (Dublin's port authority, which replaced the ballast office in 1786) as its engineer or inspector of…...
Halpin, Robert Charles
Halpin, Robert Charles (1836–94), sea captain, was born 16 February 1836 at Wicklow town, the youngest of thirteen children of James Halpin, tavern owner, and his wife, Anne Halpin (née Halbert). Educated locally at Leitrim Place, he left school at the age of eleven, with the…...
Hamilton, Eva Henrietta
Hamilton, Eva Henrietta (1876–1960) and Laetitia Marion (‘May’) (1878–1964), painters, were the eldest and second daughters respectively among eight surviving children of Charles Robert Hamilton (1846–1913), landowner and JP for Co. Meath,…...
Hamilton, Gustavus
Hamilton, Gustavus (c.1739–1775), miniaturist, was one of the younger children of the Rev. Gustavus Hamilton, vicar of Errigal in the diocese of Clogher, rector of Gallen, Co. Meath, and formerly curate in Enniskillen in 1721–2, when he married his wife Jane (née Cathcart…...
Hamilton, Hugh Douglas
Hamilton, Hugh Douglas (1740–1808), portrait- and subject-painter, was son of a Dublin wig-maker. He entered the Dublin Society School of Drawing about 1750 and was a pupil there for some eight years, studying under Robert West (qv) and…...