Dillon, Emile Joseph
Dillon, Emile Joseph (1854–1933), journalist, philologist, and author, was born 21 March 1854 in Dublin, only son of Michael Dillon, merchant, and Mary Dillon (née Byrne). Despite the earnest wishes of his father that he enter the priesthood, he embarked on a wide-ranging,…...
Dillon, Myles Patrick
Dillon, Myles Patrick (1900–72), Celtic and Sanskrit scholar, was born 11 April 1900 in Dublin, third son among five sons and one daughter of the Irish nationalist leader John Dillon (qv) and his wife Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the Rt Hon.…...
Dill, Sir Samuel
Dill, Sir Samuel (1844–1924), classical scholar, historian, and educationalist, was born 26 March 1844 at Hillsborough, Co. Down, eldest son of the Rev. Marcus Dill, DD, presbyterian minister of Hillsborough, and Anna Dill (née Moreland). He…...
Dodds, Eric Robertson
Dodds, Eric Robertson (1893–1979), classical scholar, was born 26 July 1893 at Banbridge, Co. Down, only child of Robert Dodds, headmaster of Banbridge Academy, and Anne Fleming Dodds (née Allen), a teacher. His father's family were northern presbyterians, his mother's smallish Anglo-…...
Dodington, Sir Edward
Dodington, Sir Edward (d. 1618/19), army engineer, is first recorded in Munster in 1602 as captain of the company in the lord president’s regiment of foot that was chosen, by throw of dice, to lead the assault on O'Sullivan's castle of Dunboy when the walls had been breached. He was…...
Donatus
Donatus (d. 876), Irish scholar and ecclesiastic born at the end of the eighth century, was elected bishop of Fiesole, near Florence, in 829. The tenth/ eleventh-century ‘Vita sancti Donati episcopi’ has little biographical detail, and almost nothing is known of Donatus's Irish…...
Donatus Ortigraphus
Donatus Ortigraphus (fl. c.815) was an anonymous grammarian in the Carolingian empire, whose sobriquet is taken from the incipit to his catena of Latin grammatical excerpts. His grammar (essentially a teacher's manual) is arranged in catechetical form as a…...
Dooge, James Clement Ignatius ('Jim')
Dooge, James Clement Ignatius ('Jim') (1922–2010), academic and politician, was born on 30 July 1922 in Grange Road West, Birkenhead, near Liverpool, the only son of Denis Dooge, marine engineer, and his wife Veronica (née Carroll). The Dooges were a family of engineers, most notably…...
Doran, Charles Guilfoyle
Doran, Charles Guilfoyle (1835–1909), civil engineer, Fenian, and bibliophile, was born on 1 February 1835 at Knockanna, Co. Carlow (not as previously stated at Dunlavin, Co. Wicklow), the first of seven surviving children of John Doran and his wife Mary (née Guilfoyle). He was…...
Dottin, Henri-Georges
Dottin, Henri-Georges (1863–1928), philologist and Celticist, was born 29 October 1863 at Liancourt, in the Oise department of northern France, son of Henri Dottin, public official, and Marie Dottin (née Pourcelle). He was educated in Laval College and afterwards at the University of…...
Doyne, William Thomas
Doyne, William Thomas (1823–77), railway engineer, was born in April 1823 at Old Leighlin, Co. Carlow, second son of the Rev. Thomas Doyne and Sophia Doyne (née Armstrong). At the age of 16 he entered the University of Durham and studied engineering for a year. In 1840 he was…...
Drumm, James Joseph
Drumm, James Joseph (1896–1974), chemist, industrial technologist, and inventor, was born 25 January 1896 in Dundrum, Co. Down, one of three sons of John Drumm (or Drum), RIC constable, and his wife Bridget (née Connolly). The family…...
Drummond, Thomas
Drummond, Thomas (1797–1840), engineer and public servant, was born 10 October 1797 in Edinburgh. Both his parents had connections with the Scottish literary world, his mother, Elizabeth, being the daughter of the whig writer James Somers, while his father, James Drummond, was a…...
Dubthach
Dubthach (d. p. 869), son of Máel-tuile and scribe and author of computistical verses, was one of the group of Irish and Frankish scholars associated with Sedulius Scottus (qv) in the mid ninth century, during…...
Ducart, Davis
Ducart, Davis (fl. c.1760–85), engineer and architect, was probably born in Savoy. Contemporary variations of his name include Daviso de Arcort and Davis Duckart. His family background is obscure; one possibility is that he grew up in Piedmont and later served as a military…...
Duncaht (Dúnchad)
Duncaht (Dúnchad) (fl. 9th cent.) of Reims, scribe and scholar, may perhaps be identified with Donnacán son of Máel Tuile who died in Italy in 843, according to a note in the Karlsruhe manuscript of Bede's ‘Computus’. The incipit to a fragmentary computus in the…...
Dúngal
Dúngal (d. p. 830), formerly thought to have been a composite figure of two or even three separate personalities associated with Saint-Denis, Pavia and Bobbio, was an Irish scholar-poet in the service of a succession of Carolingian monarchs. He is first mentioned in a…...
Dunlop, Henry Wallace Doveton
Dunlop, Henry Wallace Doveton (1844–1930), sports promoter, civil servant and engineer, was born in February 1844 in Bombay (Mumbai), India, the only son of (William) Henry Glasgow Dunlop (d. 1869), deputy superintendent of the Bombay Water Police, and his wife Mary Anne (née Pilkington…...
Dunlop, John Boyd
Dunlop, John Boyd (1840–1921), inventor, was prematurely born, 5 February 1840, on a farm near Dreghorn, Ayrshire, Scotland, son of John Dunlop and Agnes Dunlop (née Boyd). He was considered a delicate child, and instead of farmwork was allowed to continue studies at Irvine Academy…...
Edgeworth, Kenneth Essex
Edgeworth, Kenneth Essex (1880–1972), soldier, engineer, economist, and astronomer, was born 26 February 1880 at Daramona House, Streete, Co. Westmeath, eldest child among two sons and a daughter of Thomas Newcomen Edgeworth (1850–1931) and Elizabeth Dupré (née Wilson; d. 1929),…...
Edgeworth, Richard Lovell
Edgeworth, Richard Lovell (1744–1817), landowner, inventor, and writer, was born 31 May 1744 in Bath, Somerset, second son and seventh among eight children of Richard Edgeworth, lawyer and landowner, and his wife Jane, daughter of Samuel Lovell, a Welsh judge. Of the children only…...
Esposito, Mario
Esposito, Mario (1887–1975), medievalist and Hiberno-Latinist, was born 7 September 1887 in Blackrock, Co. Dublin, third child and only son of Michele Esposito (qv), professor of music in the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and Natalia…...
Evans, Richard
Evans, Richard (c.1740?–1802), canal engineer, was born in Wales but little is known of his early life there until the mid 1760s, when he worked on Kymer's canal. In the mid 1770s he moved to Ireland and conducted a very public career as a canal engineer on major projects.…...
Ferdomnach
Ferdomnach (d. 845) was chief scribe of the monastery of Armagh in the first half of the ninth century and scribe of the Book of Armagh. Although an unprinted genealogy of Ferdomnach, tracing his descent back twenty-three generations, is preserved in the Book of Lecan, nothing…...
Ferguson, Henry George (‘Harry’)
Ferguson, Henry George (‘Harry’) (1884–1960), engineer, was born 4 November 1884 in the townland of Growell, near Anahilt, between Hillsborough and Dromore, Co. Down, third son and fourth child among eight sons and three daughters of James Ferguson, a prosperous farmer, and Mary…...