Maguire, Conor Joseph O'Loughlin
Maguire, Conor Joseph O'Loughlin (1861–1944), physician and folklorist, was born in Carraroe, Co. Galway, the only son of the two children of Edward Maguire, also a physician, and his first wife, whose maiden name was O'Loughlin. His father later married a second time and had another…...
Mahon, Bríd (Bridget)
Mahon, Bríd (Bridget) (1918–2008), folklorist, was born on 14 July 1918 at 16 Elizabeth Street, Belfast, to Stephen Mahon and Mary Catherine Mahon (née Wall). Her father was an electrician, and she was one of five siblings. When communal and sectarian violence erupted in Belfast in 1922…...
Mallon, John
Mallon, John (1839–1915), policeman, was born 10 May 1839 near Meigh, Co. Armagh, the eldest child of Thomas Mallon, a tenant farmer, and his wife, Judith (Susan) Connolly. Educated at Newry model school and mentored by Canon Michael Murphy, Mallon was then apprenticed to a Newry draper…...
Malone, James
Malone, James (d. 1721), printer and bookseller, was of obscure origin. A catholic, he was admitted free of the city of Dublin in 1672, and of the guild of stationers in 1676. He came to prominence under James II (qv); when the…...
Malone, Molly (or Mollie)
Malone, Molly (or Mollie) , heroine of song, was probably a generic fishmonger and street trader of nineteenth-century Dublin. Molly (the name is derived from ‘Mary’), is named in a popular, unofficial anthem of the city (‘Cockles and mussels’ or ‘Molly Malone’) as a fishmonger's…...
Martin, William Gregory Wood-
Martin, William Gregory Wood- (1847–1917), historian, archaeologist, folklorist, landowner, and soldier, was born 16 July 1847 in Woodville, Co. Sligo, the only surviving son of James Wood, landowner of Woodville, and his second wife, Anne (née Martin), of Cleveragh, Co. Sligo. Anne…...
Mayne, Sir Richard
Mayne, Sir Richard (1796–1868), barrister and policeman, was born 27 November 1796 in Dublin, fourth son of Edward Mayne, barrister and later judge of the king's bench in Ireland (1817–20) and possibly descended from a family of English origin settled in the Monaghan–Fermanagh area…...
McAllister, Randal
McAllister, Randal (c.1760?–p. 1794?), printer and United Irishman, was made a freeman of the city of Dublin in October 1786 and was then a stationer; nothing else is known of his background. The following year, on 23 October 1787, he was indicted for forging a…...
McCorley, Roddy (Roger)
McCorley, Roddy (Roger) (d. 1800), United Irishman, was born in the parish of Duneane, Co. Antrim. His family is said to have been prosperous, but to have been evicted from their farm when the father died, and to have been reduced to begging, and the young man became involved in the…...
McCreery, John
McCreery, John (c.1768–1832), printer and radical, was born in Burndunnet, near Strabane, Co. Tyrone, son of James McCreery (1745–1811), a Strabane printer. In the late 1780s John McCreery left Strabane for Liverpool, where he was apprenticed to George Wood, a leading local…...
McDonnell, Thomas
McDonnell, Thomas (d. 1809), printer and bookseller, was known as a young Dublin printer in 1763; nothing else is known of his early life. He was one of the master printers contracted to produce the Hibernian Journal in 1771, the year of its inception, and took part (August…...
McElligott, Thomas J.
McElligott, Thomas J. (1888–1961), police man, union activist, and republican, was born 2 April 1888 at Duagh, Listowel,Co. Kerry, second eldest of sixteen children of a small farmer named McElligott and his wife Julia (née McCarthy). He received a local national school education…...
McGrath, Matthew J.
McGrath, Matthew J. (1875–1941), athlete and police officer in the USA, was born 28 December 1875 (not 20 December 1876, as usually given) at Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, one of eleven children of Jim McGrath, a tenant farmer, and his wife, Anne. His birth was registered on 13 January 1876…...
McLaughlin, Hugh
McLaughlin, Hugh (1918–2006), publisher and inventor, was born 11 October 1918 in the family residence at Cavan Lower in Killygordon, Co. Donegal, the youngest of five sons and two daughters of James McLaughlin, stationmaster, and his wife Dorothy (née Rogers). He attended Dromore…...
Mee, Jeremiah
Mee, Jeremiah (1889–1953), leader of the Listowel RIC mutiny, was born 29 March 1889 at Knickanes, Glenamaddy, Co. Galway, fourth child among five sons and four daughters of John Mee and Ellen Mee (née Mee). His home was a 21-acre farm near Glenamaddy village. From 1893 to 1901 he…...
Megaw, Basil
Megaw, Basil (1913–2002), archaeologist and folklife scholar, was born in Belfast on 22 June 1913, the third of four sons of Arthur Stanley Megaw, solicitor and writer, and his wife (Helen Isabel) Bertha (née Smith). Arthur Stanley Megaw (1873–1961) was a younger son of Robert Megaw…...
Melville, William
Melville, William (1852–1918), detective, was born in Sneem, Co. Kerry, son of James Melville. He had at least one brother; other details of his early life are unknown. In 1872 he joined the London Metropolitan Police; his rise within the detective service may have been accelerated…...
Miller, Liam
Miller, Liam (1924–87), publisher, was born William Miller 24 April 1924 in Mountrath, Co. Laois, son of James Miller, victualler, and Elizabeth Miller (née Carbery). He studied architecture at UCD and travelled to London after 1945 to…...
Monteith, Charles Montgomery
Monteith, Charles Montgomery (1921–95), publisher, was born 9 February 1921 in Lisburn, Co. Antrim, son of James Monteith, draper, and Marian Monteith (née Montgomery). The family were devoutly presbyterian. Charles was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institute – he later…...
Mooney, John Joseph
Mooney, John Joseph (1920–2000), farmer and publisher, was born 8 March 1920 in a nursing home at 4 Upper Pembroke Street, Dublin, elder of two children of Patrick Mooney, farmer and cattle dealer, a native of Athy, Co. Kildare, who had inherited an uncle's farm at Kilmurry, Co.…...
Moore, Theophilus
Moore, Theophilus (c.1730–c.1809), almanack compiler, may have been born in King's Co. (Offaly), but details of his life are scant and conflicting. John McCall (qv) in his comprehensive ‘History of Irish almanacks’ (written 1878; unpublished…...
Moran, Michael (‘Zozimus’)
Moran, Michael (‘Zozimus’) (c.1794–1846), balladeer, was born to poor parents in Faddle Alley, off Blackpitts in the Liberties of Dublin. At the age of two weeks an illness left him blind. This effectively limited his choice of career, and his parents sent him to rhyme on…...
Murphy, John
Murphy, John (c.1755–1832), engraver and educational publisher, was born in Cork city and reared in its northern suburbs, around Mallow Lane. At the age of seventeen he emigrated to London, led by his ‘predilection for the Fine Arts and a desire to cultivate an inclination for…...
Murphy, Michael Joseph
Murphy, Michael Joseph (1913–96), writer and collector of folklore, was born in Eden St., Liverpool, England, on 2 July 1913, son of Michael Murphy, ship's fireman, and Susan Murphy (née Campbell). Both parents were from south Armagh, and in 1922 the family returned to this region.…...
Murphy, William Richard English
Murphy, William Richard English (1890–1975), teacher, soldier, schools’ inspector, general and police commissioner, was born on 26 January 1890 at Danescastle, Carrig on Bannow, Co. Wexford, son of John Joseph Murphy and Sarah Agnes (née English), both of whom were teachers. He had one…...