Browning, Michael
Browning, Michael (d. 1689), captain of the Mountjoy, whose Christian name occurs in various forms, including Micah, Micaiah, Micaill, and Mihal, is said to have been a native of Derry city, although the family is not mentioned in the city's hearth-money rolls. He was a…...
Brownrigg, Thomas Marcus
Brownrigg, Thomas Marcus (1823–1901), police officer, and pioneer and experimental photographer, was born 8 June 1823 in Limerick, eldest son of Sir Henry John Brownrigg (1798–1873), inspector-general of constabulary (1858–65), and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Thomas…...
Brown, William
Brown, William (1777–1857), merchant captain and first admiral-in-chief of the Argentine navy, was born 22 June 1777 in Foxford, Co. Mayo. (John De Courcy Ireland has suggested that Brown was the extramarital son of a Roman catholic woman from Foxford and George Browne (c.…...
Broy, Eamon (‘Ned’)
Broy, Eamon (‘Ned’) (1887–1972), double agent and Garda commissioner, was born 22 December 1887 in Ballinure, Co. Kildare, the son of Patrick Broy, farmer, and his wife, Mary (née Barry). Educated locally, he joined the RIC on 2 August…...
Bulkeley, Sir Richard
Bulkeley, Sir Richard (1660–1710), politician and eccentric philanthropist, was born 17 August 1660 in Dublin. His great-grandfather was Archbishop Lancelot Bulkeley (qv), while his father, Richard Bulkeley (1634–85), MP for…...
Button, Sir Thomas
Button, Sir Thomas (d. 1634), naval officer, was the fourth son of Miles Button of Worlton, Glamorgan, thrice sheriff of that county, and his wife, Margaret, daughter of Edward Lewis of Y Fan. He married Mary, daughter of Sir Walter Rice of Dynevor, Carmarthenshire, and may have…...
Cameron, Robert Rupert Gibson
Cameron, Robert Rupert Gibson (1903–79), naval architect, was born 24 October 1903 at Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim, second of three children of Gibson Cameron, a baker, and his wife Jane, daughter of Henry Beattie, master mariner of Carrickfergus. He was educated at Carrickfergus model…...
Cammock (Camocke, Camock), George
Cammock (Camocke, Camock), George (c.1666–1722), sailor and Jacobite, was born in Co. Down, son of a Mr Camocke and Mary Arney. Little is known of his early life but he joined the Royal Navy in the mid 1680s, serving as a midshipman 1687–90. He served as first lieutenant of…...
Carden, John Rutter
Carden, John Rutter (1811–66), landlord, was born 5 February 1811, eldest among six sons and a daughter of John Carden (1772–1822) of Barnane, near Templemore, Co. Tipperary, landowner, DL, and high sheriff (1796) of the county, and Ann Carden…...
Carroll, Patrick Joseph
Carroll, Patrick Joseph (1903–75), Garda commissioner, was born 15 September 1903 in Ballyrider, Stradbally, Co. Laois, third among six children of Michael Carroll (d. c.1920) and Julia Carroll (née Buggy) (d. c.1939), farmers. Educated at the…...
Chadwick, John Cooper-
Chadwick, John Cooper- (1864–1948), colonial policeman and Rhodesian pioneer, was born 13 May 1864 in Baggotstown, Bruff, Co. Limerick, second son of Richard Austin Cooper-Chadwick (1831–92) of Ballinard House, Emly, Co. Tipperary, and his second wife, Charlotte Sophia (d. 1912),…...
Chamberlain, Sir Neville Francis Fitzgerald
Chamberlain, Sir Neville Francis Fitzgerald (1856–1944), soldier, inspector general of the RIC, and originator of snooker, was born 13 January 1856 at Upton Park, Upton, Buckinghamshire, England, only son of Lt-col. Charles Francis Falcon Chamberlain of the Indian army and Marion Ormsby…...
Clark, Wallace
Clark, Wallace (1926–2011), yachtsman, writer and businessman, was born in Upperlands, Co. Derry, on 20 November 1926, one of three children, two boys and a girl, of Harry Francis Clark, of Rockwood in Upperlands, and his wife Sybil Emily (née Stuart). His father was a director and…...
Code, Henry Brereton
Code, Henry Brereton (c.1770–1838), journalist, dramatist, and government agent (whose real name appears to have been Cody), was educated in a seminary. He began his career as a retailer of hose at Skinner Row, Dublin (1793). After the failure of this business and other…...
Colgan, Nathaniel
Colgan, Nathaniel (1851–1919), botanist, marine biologist, and traveller, was born 28 May 1851 in Dublin. The identity of his parents is not known with certainty, though they may have been Nathaniel Watson Colgan and Letitia Phair, who married in Dublin in 1846. Colgan was educated…...
Conefrey, Peter
Conefrey, Peter (1880–1939), catholic priest and social critic, was born 9 June 1880 in Mohill, Co. Leitrim, son of James Conefrey, publican, and his wife Mary McGivney. There were many priests on both sides of the family. His uncle, Fr Thomas Conefrey, parish priest of Drumlish,…...
Coogan, Edward (Eamonn, ‘Ned’)
Coogan, Edward (Eamonn, ‘Ned’) (1896–1948), deputy Garda commissioner, barrister, and politician, was born 30 November 1896 in Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny, the only son of Timothy Coogan, shopkeeper of Castlecomer, and Bridget Coogan (née Joyce). Educated at Castlecomer national…...
Cooke, Adolphus
Cooke, Adolphus (1792–1876), eccentric, was born in Cookesborough near Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, illegitimate son of Robert Cooke, landowner, and an unnamed servant. Adolphus's mother was sent away, and he was raised by a nurse, Mary Kelly, in a two-room thatched cottage, forbidden…...
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…...
Coppinger, Richard William
Coppinger, Richard William (1847–1910), naval surgeon, naturalist, and explorer, was born 11 October 1847 in Dublin, youngest among six sons of Joseph William Coppinger, solicitor, of Farmley, Dundrum, Co. Dublin, and Agnes Mary Coppinger (née Cooke), a native of Co. Tipperary. He…...
Coppin, William
Coppin, William (1805–95), sailor, shipbuilder, and inventor, was born 9 October 1805 in Kinsale, Co. Cork; no details of his parents are known. From his childhood he displayed a strong affinity to the sea, and at the age of 15 was involved in the rescue of six customs men from a…...
Cormac
Cormac (fl. 6th cent.) of the Uí Liatháin was a pilgrim monk mentioned several times by Adomnán (qv) in his ‘Vita Columbae’. He appears in the genealogies as ‘priest’, son of Dímma, grandson of Commán, and belonging to the tribe of…...
Costigan, Daniel
Costigan, Daniel (1911–79), civil servant and Garda commissioner, was born 18 February 1911 in Derryfada, Kealkil, Bantry, Co. Cork (where the Costigan family had lived for many generations), elder surviving son and third among six children of James Costigan (d. 1956) and Anne…...
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…...
Crane, Charles Paston
Crane, Charles Paston (1857–1939), RIC officer, resident magistrate, and soldier, was born at Holden Clough, Holden, Yorks. (now Lancs.), son of William Crane (d. 1903), anglican curate, and was educated at home and Exeter College, Oxford (BA…...