Bender, Philipp Philip Phineas
Bender, Philipp Philip Phineas (c.1831–1901), Jewish minister and teacher, was born in Germany, and moved (c.1851) to Hull, England, where he was appointed minister to the Jewish community. He settled (1862) in Dublin and was appointed (1863–81) a preacher at…...
Benmohel, Nathan Lazarus
Benmohel, Nathan Lazarus (1802/3–69), linguist, was born in Hamburg, Germany, son of Lazarus Benmohel (d. 1841), a rabbi, and his wife, a rabbi's daughter. He settled in Ireland c.1827–9 as a teacher of languages in Dublin. Aged twenty-nine, he entered…...
Bewley, Henry
Bewley, Henry (1804–76), businessman and evangelist, was born 4 July 1804, fifth of ten sons of Samuel Bewley, Dublin businessman, and Elizabeth Bewley (née Fayle); they also had three daughters. An older brother, who had been named Henry, died aged two in January 1804, and the name…...
Blond, Marcus Joseph
Blond, Marcus Joseph (c.1865–1905), president of the Limerick Jewish community, was a native of Wexna, Lithuania. Ordained a rabbi in his teens, he settled (1880s) in Limerick city, where he established a grocery business. He appears in the 1901 census as ‘Marcus Jacob Blonde’…...
Bradlaw, Robert
Bradlaw, Robert (c.1839–1904), Jewish community leader, was born in Kovno, Russia. By profession an oculist, he lived in England before settling in Dublin, where he became a leading lay representative of the Jewish immigrants. Responsive to their particular needs, he…...
Burneyeat (Burnyeat), John
Burneyeat (Burnyeat), John (1631–90), quaker missionary, was born in Crabtreebeck, Cumberland. A pious, industrious farmer, he attended a meeting held by George Fox in 1653 and afterwards joined the Society of Friends. Following his conversion, he continued to farm and did not begin to…...
Cohen, Isaac
Cohen, Isaac (1914–2007), chief rabbi of the Republic of Ireland (1959–79), was born 26 July 1914 in Llanelli, Wales, one of three children born to shopkeeper parents of Lithuanian birth. Growing up amongst a community of fifty or so orthodox Jewish families, Cohen retained rich…...
Cohen, Joseph Wolfe
Cohen, Joseph Wolfe (1780–1869), president of the Dublin Hebrew Congregation, was born September 1780 in Poznan, Poland (soon to become a Prussian possession as ‘Posen’). After living in Birmingham, he settled in Dublin c.1819. One of the principal founders of the revived…...
Conway, Anne
Conway, Anne (1631–79), Viscountess Conway , woman of learning, was born in London, youngest child of Heneage Finch (1580–1631) and his second wife, Elizabeth Cradock (d. 1655). Elizabeth, from Staffordshire, brought both sturdy independence and wealth into her second marriage,…...
Dhammaloka (Carroll, Laurence)
Dhammaloka (Carroll, Laurence) (b. c.1856), Buddhist monk in Burma (Myanmar), was probably born in 1856 in south Co. Dublin, son of a grocer in Booterstown. All that is known of his life prior to his emergence as a public figure in colonial Burma in 1900 derives from his own…...
Dillon, Michael
Dillon, Michael (1915–62), physician, writer, Buddhist novice-monk and the first person known to surgically transition from female to male, was born Laura Maud Dillon on 1 May 1915 in Ladbroke Grove, London, England. Dillon was the second child of Robert Arthur Dillon (1865–1925),…...
Edmundson, William
Edmundson, William (1627–1712), quaker leader, was born c. 4 October 1627 in Little Musgrave, Westmorland (Cumbria), England, youngest of six children of John Edmundson (d. 1635), a well-to-do yeoman, and Grace Edmundson (d. 1632). Orphaned at an early age, he was reared…...
Firth, Virginia Arabella ('Gay')
Firth, Virginia Arabella ('Gay') (1937–2005), author, journalist and political campaigner, was born in Belfast on 9 January 1937, the eldest of three daughters of Lancelot Turtle, a Belfast businessman and stockbroker, and Helen Ramsey Turtle (1911–46), born in Denver, Colorado,…...
Foster, (Frederic) Gordon
Foster, (Frederic) Gordon (1921–2010) statistician and informatics pioneer, was born on 24 February 1921 in Belfast, one of three children of Robert Foster, motor garage manager, and his wife Florence Evelynn (née Magee). The family were then living on Eglantine Avenue, Lisburn Road.…...
Harvey, Joshua Reuben
Harvey, Joshua Reuben (1804–87), physician and naturalist, was born in Cork, into a quaker family, son of Reuben Harvey (1770–1830), American consul in Cork, and Mary Harvey (née Fennell). He entered TCD, graduating…...
Herzog, Chaim (‘Vivian’)
Herzog, Chaim (‘Vivian’) (1918–97), Israeli soldier, lawyer, businessman, diplomat, and politician, was born 17 September 1918 at 2 Norman Villas, Cliftonville Rd, Belfast, elder of two sons of Isaac Herzog (qv), rabbi,…...
Herzog, Isaac (Yitzak) Halevi
Herzog, Isaac (Yitzak) Halevi (1888–1959), first chief rabbi of the Irish Free State, was born at Lomza, Poland, the only son of Rabbi Joel Herzog, rabbi of the Polish Jewish community in Paris, and Miriam Liba Herzog (née Cirowitz). With an initial education provided by his father, by…...
Jacob, Joshua
Jacob, Joshua (1801–77), quaker reformer and grocer, was born in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, second son of Samuel Watson Jacob, merchant, and Mary Jacob (née Jackson). He was educated at Newtown school, Waterford; in Leeds, Yorkshire; and finally at Ballitore, Co. Kildare. After an…...
Lánczos, Cornelius
Lánczos, Cornelius (Kornél) (1893–1974), theoretical physicist, was born 2 February 1893 in Székesfehérvár, Hungary, eldest of five children of Carolus Löwy, lawyer, and Adél Hahn. During the early 1900s the family changed their name to Lánczos, a Hungarian form of the Jewish name Löwy…...
Leventhal, Abraham Jacob (‘Con’)
Leventhal, Abraham Jacob (‘Con’) (1896–1979), lecturer, essayist, and critic, was born 9 May 1896 in Lower Clanbrassil St., Dublin, son of Moses (Maurice) Leventhal, draper, and Rosa Leventhal (née Levenberg). He was reared in an orthodox Jewish family; his mother, a poet and lifelong…...
Levine, June
Levine, June (1931–2008), feminist, journalist and author, was born Stephanie June Levine in the Rotunda hospital, Dublin, on 31 December 1931, eldest child of Charles Solomon ('Solly') Levine, a cabinet maker, the son of Jewish parents who fled from Latvia, and his wife Muriel Ruth (…...
Logan, James
Logan, James (1674–1751), scientist and public servant in America, was born 20 October 1674 at Lurgan, Co. Armagh, son of Patrick Logan, a schoolmaster and former Church of Scotland clergyman who became a quaker, and his wife, Isabel Logan (née Hume) – both had moved to Ireland from…...
Lonsdale, Kathleen
Lonsdale, Kathleen (1903–71), X-ray crystallographer and pacifist, was born 28 January 1903 in Charlotte House, Newbridge, Co. Kildare, youngest among ten children of Henry Frederick Yardley (d. 1923), an English-born former soldier and postmaster of Newbridge, and his wife Jessie…...
Lucas, Frederick
Lucas, Frederick (1812–55), journalist and politician, was born 30 March 1812 at Westminster, second son of Samuel Hayhurst Lucas, a quaker and London corn merchant. His elder brother, Samuel Lucas (1811–65), became a noted journalist and social and educational reformer and married the…...
Marcus, David
Marcus, David (1924–2009), author, editor and journalist, was born on 21 August 1924 in his parents' house on the Mardyke in Cork city, son of Solomon Marcus, picture framer, and his wife Frances (née Goldberg), a sister of Gerald Goldberg…...