Adair, Sir Robert Alexander Shafto
Adair, Sir Robert Alexander Shafto (1811–86), 2nd baronet, Baron Waveney, MP and author, was born 25 August 1811, elder son of Sir Robert Shafto Adair (1st baronet, of Flixton Hall, Suffolk, and Ballymena, Co. Antrim) and Elizabeth Adair (née Strode), and educated at Harrow (1823–8).…...
Bailey, Mary (‘Lady Bailey’) (née Westenra)
Bailey, Mary (‘Lady Bailey’) (née Westenra) (1890–1960), aviator, was born on 1 December 1890 at 30 Grosvenor Square, London, to Derrick (Derry) Warner William Westenra (1853–1921), the fifth Baron Rossmore, and his wife Mittie (née Naylor) (d. 1953), the daughter of a wealthy English…...
Bastable, Charles Francis
Bastable, Charles Francis (1855–1945), economist and academic, was born in Charleville, Co. Cork, the only son of the Rev. Robert Bastable, rector of Knock Temple and Kilbolane, and his wife Louisa, daughter of a Dr Little of Sligo. Educated at Fermoy College and…...
Beaufort, Daniel Augustus
Beaufort, Daniel Augustus (1739–1821), clergyman, architect, and cartographer, was born 1 October 1739 in London, son of Daniel Cornelius Beaufort and Esther Beaufort (née Gougeon), members of the huguenot community. The family moved to Ireland when Daniel's father became chaplain…...
Bermingham, William (‘Willie’) Patrick
Bermingham, William (‘Willie’) Patrick (1942–90), founder of ALONE, was born 29 March 1942 in Inchicore, Dublin, third among seven children of William Bermingham, bellman on a fuel cart, and Mary Bermingham (née Dalgarno). He was educated at St Michael's School, Inchicore, and…...
Booth, Eva Selina Gore-
Booth, Eva Selina Gore- (1870–1926), poet, mystic, trade unionist and suffragist, was born on 22 May 1870 at Lissadell, Co. Sligo, the second of three daughters (and two sons) of Sir Henry Gore-Booth, 5th baronet and Arctic explorer, and his wife, Georgina (née Hill) of Tickhill castle…...
Capper, Wilfrid Meredyth
Capper, Wilfrid Meredyth (1905–89), conservationist and creator of the Ulster Way, was born in Belfast on 12 July 1905, the second son of four children (two boys and two girls) of John Malcolmson Capper, a cotton yarn merchant, and Elizabeth Jane Capper (née Stewart); the family was…...
Cavan, Harry (Henry Hartrick)
Cavan, Harry (Henry Hartrick) (1916–2000), football administrator and trade union official, was born on 19 May 1916 in Mary Street, Newtownards, Co. Down, the eldest child of Walter Cavan, a motor body maker, and his wife Clara (née Quinn). Educated locally, he left school at 14 to…...
Crozier, Maurna
Crozier, (Rose Mary) Maurna (1942–2015), social anthropologist, was born in Belfast on 22 January 1942, the only surviving child of Robert Frizzell, the first general manager of the Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB), and his wife Molly (née Rands), a rosarian and the daughter of…...
Cusack, Margaret Anna (‘The nun of Kenmare’)
Cusack, Margaret Anna (‘The nun of Kenmare’) (1829–99), nun and author, was born 6 May 1829 at Coolock, Co. Dublin, the elder of two children of Dr Samuel Cusack and his wife, Sarah (née Stoney). Early life and conversion to catholicism She was educated privately, learning informally…...
Duff, Charles St Lawrence
Duff, Charles St Lawrence (1894–1966) author, barrister and linguist, was born on 7 April 1894 in Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh, the youngest of ten children to grow to adulthood of John Duff, secretary of the Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway, and his wife Anne Marie Duff (…...
Elmes, Mary
Elmes, Mary (1908–2002), humanitarian worker 'righteous among the nations', was born Marie Elizabeth Jean Elmes on 5 May 1908, at Culgreine, 120 Blackrock Road, Ballintemple, Cork, the home of her parents, Edward Thomas Elmes, a pharmacist, and his wife Elizabeth Octavia (née Waters…...
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…...
Ingram, John Kells
Ingram, John Kells (1823–1907), economist, poet, and academic, was born 7 July 1823, eldest of five children of the Rev. William Ingram and Elizabeth Ingram (née Cooke). His father, a scholar at TCD in 1790, was rector of Templecarne,…...
Lawson, James Anthony
Lawson, James Anthony (1817–87), judge and economist, was born 10 February 1817, the eldest son of James Lawson of Waterford and his wife Mary Anthony. After initial education in Waterford, he entered TCD in October 1833, became a…...
Leslie, Thomas Edward Cliffe
Leslie, Thomas Edward Cliffe (1825–82), political economist, was born 21 June 1825 in Co. Wexford, second son of the Rev. Edward Leslie and Margaret Leslie (née Higginson), who had also at least five daughters. His father was a member of the Leslie family of Glaslough, and a half-…...
Lewis, Sir George Cornewall
Lewis, Sir George Cornewall (1806–63), politician, author, and assistant commissioner of the poor law in Ireland, was born 21 April 1806 in London, elder son of Sir Thomas Frankland Lewis (1780–1855), later MP for Beaumaris (1812–26) and Ennis (1826–8), commissioner for Irish…...
Lewy, Ernst
Lewy, Ernst (1881–1966), linguist, was born on 19 September 1881 in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), the youngest of ten children of Jacob Lewy, a merchant, and Julia Lewy (née Bielschowsky). The family background was Jewish. Lewy attended the König-Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Breslau…...
Longfield, Mountifort
Longfield, Mountifort (1802–84), economist and lawyer, was second son of the Rev. Mountifort Longfield (d. 1850), JP and vicar of Desert Serges, Co. Cork, of the Anglo-Irish Longfield family of Longueville, near Mallow, Co. Cork, and his…...
Mason, William Shaw
Mason, William Shaw (c.1774–1853), administrator and statistician, was born in 1774 or 1775 in Dublin, where his father, Henry Mason, was a tax official; nothing is known of his mother. It is not known if he was related to the Monck Masons, his contemporaries. He was…...
McAughtry, Sam
McAughtry, Sam (1921–2014), writer and broadcaster, was born on 24 March 1921 in the Tiger’s Bay area of north Belfast, the son of Marriott ‘Mark’ McAughtry (1882–1951), a merchant seaman, and his wife Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ (née Condit). Sam was the sixth of ten children, four of whom died…...
McCarthy, Charles
McCarthy, Charles (1924–86), trade unionist and academic, was born 25 January 1924 at 12 Annmount, Friars Walk, Cork city, second child of John George McCarthy of Cork, plumber, and Agnes Abina McCarthy (née O'Donoghue). He was educated at Presentation College, Cork,…...
McCormack, Inez Jane Mary (née Murphy)
McCormack, Inez Jane Mary (née Murphy) (1943–2013), human rights activist and trade unionist, was born on 28 September 1943 in Belfast to Francis Cecil Murphy, a printer, and his wife, Margaret Murphy (née Sterritt), a nurse. She had one older brother, Terence (b. 1942). When Inez was…...
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…...
Moore, Robert Ross Rowan
Moore, Robert Ross Rowan (1811–64), political economist, was born 23 December 1811 in Dublin, the eldest son of William Moore, clergyman, of Garden Hill, Dublin, and his wife, Helena Moore (née Rowan). William Moore belonged to a branch of the Rowallan family who had settled in…...