Cook, Robert
Cook, Robert (1646?–c.1726), eccentric, was the son of Robert Cook of Cappoquin, Co. Waterford. During the reign of James II (qv) he fled to England and lived at Ipswich. In its act of attainder the 1689 Jacobite parliament…...
Dicuil (Dícuil(l))
Dicuil (Dícuil(l)) (c.760–p.825), Irish scholar-exile at the courts of Charles the Great and Louis the Pious, was an important author of several works on geography, computus, grammar, and astronomy. The only details of his life that are known are what can be…...
Dobbs, Francis
Dobbs, Francis (1750–1811), Volunteer, author, and MP, was born 27 April 1750, second son among four sons and a daughter of the Rev. Richard Dobbs (c.1694–1775), rector (1743–75) of Lisburn cathedral, Co. Antrim, and his wife Mary (d. 1796), widow of Cornet McMannus, and…...
Downes, George
Downes, George (1790–1846), travel writer and topographer, was born in South King St., Dublin, son of John Downes; no details of his mother are known. He worked as a draper's assistant in his youth before being befriended by one of the Shackletons of Ballitore, Co. Kildare, who…...
Dudley, Thomas (‘Bang Bang’)
Dudley, Thomas (‘Bang Bang’) (1906–81), eccentric, was born on 13 February 1906 in the Rotunda hospital, Dublin. Raised in an orphanage in Cabra, he lived for much of his adult life on Mill Lane near The Coombe in the Liberties. Although he worked briefly as a kitchen porter in Rialto…...
Evans, Emyr Estyn
Evans, Emyr Estyn (1905–89), Ireland's first professor of geography, was born 29 May 1905, youngest of four sons and one daughter of the Rev. George Owen Evans, minister of the Presbyterian Church in Wales, and Elizabeth Evans (née Jones). Born in Shrewsbury, he spent his early…...
Fitzgerald, Robert David
Fitzgerald, Robert David (1830–92), surveyor, botanical artist, and naturalist, was born 30 November 1830 at Tralee, Co. Kerry, the son of Robert David Fitzgerald, a banker, and his wife, Mary Ann, née Bell. After studying civil engineering at QCC…...
Gibney, Frank
Gibney, Frank (1905–78), architect and town planner, was born 20 April 1905, son of Joseph Francis Gibney, architect, and his wife Eleanor (née Bassett). Aged 18 he went to work for his father (who had been apprenticed to the office of William Kaye Parry), and five years later moved…...
Gookin, Vincent
Gookin, Vincent (1616?–1659), surveyor general, MP for Bandon and Kinsale 1654–9, and friend and colleague of William Petty (qv), was the eldest son of Cork settler Sir Vincent Gookin…...
Griffith, Sir Richard John
Griffith, Sir Richard John (1784–1878), public servant, surveyor, and geologist, was born 20 September 1784 at 8 Hume St., Dublin (the house is marked by a plaque), son of Richard Griffith (qv), MP for Askeaton, deputy governor of Co.…...
Hanger, George
Hanger, George (1751–1824), army officer, author, and eccentric, was born 13 October 1751 in Co. Londonderry, third son of Gabriel Hanger, 1st Lord Coleraine, MP and merchant, and Elizabeth Hanger (née Bond) of Cowbury, Hereford, England. Educated at Reading School and Eton, he…...
Henderson, John
Henderson, John (1757–88), eccentric scholar, was born 27 March 1757 in Co. Limerick (sources say at Ballygarran or Ballegarance, which may be the townland of Ballycarrane), the only son of Richard Henderson, Wesleyan lay preacher, and his first or second wife, whose name may have been…...
Hodnett, George Desmond ('Hoddy')
Hodnett, George Desmond ('Hoddy') (1918–90), musician, journalist and bohemian, was born 25 February 1918 in Bradford, Yorkshire, England, son of George Pope Hodnett (1890–1982), soldier, and Lauré Hodnett (née Faschnacht), a native of Switzerland; he had at least one sibling, a brother…...
Hood, John
Hood, John (1720/21?–1783), land surveyor, was apparently born in Co. Donegal. There may have been two John Hoods, father and son, who were both surveyors; if so, it is impossible to disentangle their careers and dates of vital events. John Hood, surveyor, died in 1783, and there is…...
Hughes, Pat
Hughes, Pat (1924–99), prospector and businessman, was born Patrick Joseph Hughes on 14 March 1924 near Keady, Co. Armagh, the only son of three children of Charles Hughes, a building contractor of Keady, and his wife Mary. When he was around 10, his catholic family moved to Newry,…...
Joyce, Patrick Weston
Joyce, Patrick Weston (1827–1914), educationalist, historian, linguist, translator and collector of folk music, was born in Ballyorgan, Co. Limerick, one of the eight sons of Garrett Joyce, a shoemaker known locally as ‘Garrett the Scholar’ for his knowledge of poetry and religion, and…...
Keegan, John
Keegan, John (1813–93), surveyor and diarist, was born at Laragh, near Horseleap, Co. Westmeath, in 1813, the only son of Thomas Keegan (1789–1854), a farmer, and his wife, Mary (née Gannon). The Keegans were descended from the hereditary brehons of the Irish midlands; one…...
Larcom, Sir Thomas Aiskew
Larcom, Sir Thomas Aiskew (1801–79), surveyor, administrator, and under-secretary for Ireland (1853–68), was born 22 April 1801 in Hampshire, one of five children of Captain Joseph Larcom (d. 1817), RN, who administered a dockyard in Malta, and his wife…...
Lecky, Squire Thornton Stratford
Lecky, Squire Thornton Stratford (1838–1902), master mariner, cartographer, and writer on navigation, was born in Downpatrick, Co. Down, fifth son of Holland Lecky of Castle Lecky, Magilligan, Co. Londonderry, and Ballyholland House, Co. Down, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of the…...
Loftus, Sean Daniel ('Dublin Bay')
Loftus, Sean Daniel ('Dublin Bay') (1927–2010), environmentalist and political activist, was born in Dublin on 26 November 1927, eldest of seven children (four sons and three daughters) of J. J. Loftus, medical doctor, and his wife Margaret, former captain of the Irish hockey team. The…...
Lythe, Robert
Lythe, Robert (d. c. 1574), cartographer, was first recorded in 1556 when he was employed by the auditor of Calais, John Challoner (qv), to map the surrounding English Pale. Chaloner, a client of Sir William…...
Mac Murchadha Caomhánach, Seán Óg
This is a co-subject for the entry on Kavanagh, Muiris (‘Kruger’). View the original entry....
MacNamara, Desmond Joseph
MacNamara, Desmond Joseph (1918–2008), artist, writer and bohemian, was born 10 May 1918 in a private hospital at 29 Upper Mount Street, Dublin, son of Patrick William MacNamara, secretary of Greenslade and Co., ladies' tailors and costumers of 32 Wicklow Street, Dublin (at which…...
Manning, Robert
Manning, Robert (1816–97), surveyor and civil engineer, was born 22 October 1816 in Avincourt, Normandy, France, third of eight children of William Manning (1783–1826) of Knocknamohil, Co. Wicklow, a lieutenant in the Wicklow militia who fought in the USA, in the Peninsular war, and…...
McGregor, John James
McGregor, John James (c.1773–1834), historian and topographer, was born 24 February c.1773 in Limerick city, the seventh son and youngest of seventeen children (many of whom did not survive to adulthood) of John McGregor (d. 1796), native of Scotland, probably by…...