Ahern, Catherine Ita ('Kit')
Ahern, Catherine Ita ('Kit') (1915–2007), president of the Irish Countrywomen's Association, senator and TD, was born 13 January 1915 in Athea, Co. Limerick, eldest of eight children of Patrick Liston , a wheelwright and carpenter, and his wife Mary Ann (née McAuliffe). The family…...
Airey, Johanna (‘Josie’)
Airey, Johanna (‘Josie’) (1932–2002), legal-aid campaigner, was born 4 May 1932 at 154 Bandon Road, Cork city, one of two daughters and two sons of Michael Lynch , labourer, and Eileen Lynch (née Sullivan). Her parents both died early, leaving her in the care of her grandmother,…...
Allen, Dave
Allen, Dave (1936–2005), comedian, was born David Edward Tynan O'Mahony on 6 July 1936 in a nursing home at 37 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin, youngest of three sons of (Gerard John) Cullen Tynan O'Mahony (nicknamed 'Pussy'), journalist, manager of the Irish Times, and raconteur,…...
Atkinson, Sarah
Atkinson, Sarah (1823–93), philanthropist and author, was born 13 October 1823 in Athlone, Co. Roscommon, eldest of five daughters and one son of John Gaynor , gentleman, and Anna Gaynor. The family moved to Dublin for the sake of the children's education, but no details are known…...
Aylward, Margaret Louisa
Aylward, Margaret Louisa (1810–89), philanthropist and founder of a religious congregation, was born 23 November 1810 in Waterford city, fifth among ten children of William Aylward (d. 1840), merchant, and Ellen Aylward (née Murphy), who also had a son from her first marriage. The…...
Balfe, John Donnellan
Balfe, John Donnellan (1816–80), politician, journalist, and British government spy, was born in Co. Meath, son of James Balfe, gentleman, and Sara Balfe (née Sutherland). He was educated at Clongowes Wood College, Co. Kildare, and had a brief career in the British army, joining…...
Barry, Billie (Lillian)
Barry, Billie (Lillian) (1921–2014), performer and stage school founder, was born on 27 January 1921 in Drumcondra, Dublin, the youngest of fifteen children to John Clarke-Barry, orchestra leader and musician, and his wife Anne (née Hughes), an amateur operatic singer. The family were…...
Behan, Brian Finbar Oliver Plunkett
Behan, Brian Finbar Oliver Plunkett (1926–2002), writer, radical, and bohemian, was born Brian Desmond Behan (the name appearing on the birth certificate) on 10 November 1926 in the Rotunda hospital, Dublin, while the family were residing at 14 Russell St., the third of five children of…...
Bellamy, George Anne
Bellamy, George Anne (1731?–1788), actress, was born in Fingal, Co. Dublin, illegitimate daughter of James O'Hara (qv), 2nd baron of Tyrawley, then British ambassador to Lisbon, and a Miss Seal, an actress of quaker extraction from Kent. Her mother married a…...
Bernard, Agnes Morrogh (Mother Mary Arsenius)
Bernard, Agnes Morrogh (Mother Mary Arsenius) (1842–1932), nun, teacher, and founder of Providence Mill, Foxford, Co. Mayo, was born 24 February 1842 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, the eldest child of John Morrogh , of a prominent catholic family from Glanmire, Cork, and Frances…...
Bernelle, Agnes
Bernelle, Agnes (1923–99), singer and actress, was born Agnes Elizabeth Bernauer on 7 March 1923 in Berlin, Germany, daughter of Rudolph Bernauer (1880–1953), a Jewish-Hungarian actor, playwright, librettist, and theatrical director and impresario, and his second wife, Emmy (née Erb) (b…...
Bhreatnach, Lucy
This is a co-subject for the entry on Breatnach, Deasún. View the original entry....
Bianconi, Charles
Bianconi, Charles (1786–1875), transport entrepreneur, was born Joachim Carlo Guiseppe Bianconi on 24 September 1786 at Tregolo, near Como in Lombardy, Italy, the second of five children of Pietro and Maria Bianconi. His father owned a farm and a silk mill, and was agent for the…...
Blachford, Theodosia
Blachford, Theodosia (1744–1817?), philanthropist and leading methodist, was born at her father's residence in Rosanna, Co. Wicklow, only daughter of William Tighe (qv), landowner and MP, and Lady Mary Tighe of Rathmore, Co. Meath,…...
Boylan, Patricia
This is a co-subject for the entry on Boylan, Henry Joseph. View the original entry....
Boyle, (Christopher) Kevin
Boyle, (Christopher) Kevin (1943–2010), lawyer, academic and human rights activist, was born on 23 May 1943 in Newry, Co. Down, the fourth of nine children of Louis Boyle, a taxi driver, and his wife Elizabeth (or Alice) (née McArdle). The family was catholic. Kevin was educated locally…...
Boyle, Hilary Joyce
Boyle, Hilary Joyce (1899–1988), journalist, broadcaster, and activist, was born 25 October 1899 in south London, second child of Gerald Alexander Thompson, vicar of St Gregory's church, Canterbury, and canon of Canterbury cathedral, and Winifred Helen Thompson (née Hopkins), and…...
Breen, Dermot H.
Breen, Dermot H. (1924–78), founder of Cork International Film Festival and film censor, was born 18 August 1924 in Waterford, sixth child of James Breen and Brigid Breen. He was educated in Cork at the Presentation Brothers College and at the Provincial College. Initially a…...
Burke, Honora
Burke, Honora (1674–1698), was the youngest daughter of William Burke (qv), 7th earl of Clanricarde, and his second wife, Helen, daughter of Donough MacCarthy (qv), 1st earl of Clancarty…...
Bushell, Ellen Sarah ('Nellie')
Bushell, Ellen Sarah (‘Nellie’) (1884–1948), silk weaver, usher and activist, was born on 23 January 1884 at 57 Francis Street, Dublin, to Edward Bushell (d. 1904), a silk weaver, and his wife Ellen (née Walshe). Bushell’s mother was dead by 1901 and Edward had…...
Cahill, Pearse
Cahill, Pearse (1917–2011), aviator, businessman and race driver, was born Matthew Pearse Cahill (in honour of the executed leader of the 1916 rising) in Dublin on 26 January 1917, son of Hugh Cahill (1883–1966), of Glasnevin, Dublin, and his wife Caroline (née O'Connor). The owner-…...
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…...
Carson, Frank
Carson, Frank (1926–2012), comedian, was born Hugh Francis Carson on 6 November 1926 in the 'Little Italy' area of Belfast, around Great Patrick Street, one of six children of John Carson, a binman and messenger, and his wife, Josie (née Agusta), originally from Dublin, whose family…...
Casement, Sir Roger David
Casement, Sir Roger David (1864–1916), humanitarian and Irish nationalist, was born 1 September 1864 in Sandycove, near Dublin, youngest child among one daughter and three sons of Roger Casement, retired army officer, and Anne Casement (née Jephson). His elder brother was…...
Cashman, Nellie
Cashman, Nellie (1845?–1925), frontier entrepreneur and philanthropist, was born in the mid 1840s near Cobh (Queenstown), Co. Cork. Documentary details of her early life in Ireland and America are few, rendering any chronology of her first twenty-five years largely speculative.…...