Asmal, (Abdul) Kader
Asmal, (Abdul) Kader (1934–2011), human rights jurist, anti-apartheid campaigner and South African government minister, was born on 8 October 1934 in Stanger (KwaDukuza), Natal, South Africa, the youngest of eight children (six sons and two daughters) of Ahmed Asmal, grocer, and his…...
Babington, Sir Anthony Brutus
Babington, Sir Anthony Brutus (1877–1972), lawyer and politician, was born 24 November 1877, eldest son of Hume Babington, architect and civil engineer, of Creevagh House, Co. Londonderry, with an estate of 1,540 acres in 1876. The family were direct descendants of…...
Barr, Andrew (Andy)
Barr, Andrew (Andy) (1913–2003), trade unionist and communist, was born 23 September 1913 at 29 Cluan Place, off Mountpottinger Road, Ballymacarrett, Belfast, second child among two sons and five daughters (two other children died in infancy) of Andrew Barr (d. 1986, aged 98), a…...
Barrett, Rosa (Mary)
Barrett, Rosa (Mary) (1854–1936) philanthropist, child-care worker, and suffragist, was born 15 January 1854 in Royston, Hertfordshire, England, daughter of the Rev. W. G. Barrett and Martha Barrett (née Fletcher). From the 1860s she was resident with her family in Dublin. Her…...
Crofton, Sir John Wenman
Crofton, Sir John Wenman (1912–2009), physician, scientist and public health campaigner, was born on 27 March 1912 at the family home, 55 Merrion Square South, Dublin, the only son (between two sisters) of William Mervyn Crofton, physician and bacteriologist, and his wife Mary…...
Deale, Kenneth Edwin Lee
Deale, Kenneth Edwin Lee (1907–74), barrister, judge, and author, was born 17 January 1907, third son of four children of Edwin Lee Deale (d. 1948), stationer and merchant, of 11 Effra Road, Rathmines, Dublin, and Mary (‘Minnie Hill’) Deale (née Martin; d. 1939) of Co. Kerry. The…...
Fox, Richard Michael ('R. M. ')
Fox, Richard Michael ('R. M. ') (1891–1969), writer and trade unionist, was born on 13 November 1891 in Leeds, Yorkshire, the second of four sons of Richard Fox and his wife Elizabeth (née Rathmell). Richard senior worked as a gymnasium instructor in Leeds, and later as a skilled…...
Heitler, Walter
Heitler, Walter (1904–81), theoretical physicist and philosopher, was born 2 January 1904 in Karlsruhe, Baden, Germany, son of Adolf Heitler, a Jewish engineering professor, and Ottilie Heitler (née Rudolf ). His largely classical early education left him with a lifelong interest…...
Hennig, Paul Gottfried Johannes (John)
Hennig, Paul Gottfried Johannes (John) (1911–86), scholar and businessman, was born 3 March 1911 in Leipzig, Germany, fourth of five children of Fürchtegott Max Hennig, protestant theologian and teacher, and his wife Berta Johanna (neé Clemen) who was from a family of distinguished…...
Houlihan, Con
Houlihan, Con (1925–2012), sportswriter, was born on 6 December 1925 in Reineen, near Castleisland, Co. Kerry, the middle child among two boys and a girl of Michael Houlihan and his wife Ellen ('Nell') (née Cronin). His parents farmed a small holding (about five acres of arable land),…...
Hyde, Harford Montgomery
Hyde, Harford Montgomery (1907–89), barrister, politician, and author, was born 14 August 1907 in Belfast, son of James Johnstone Hyde JP, linen merchant, and his wife, Isobel (née Montgomery). Hyde claimed distant kinship with Henry James. His…...
Keating, May
Keating, May (1895–1965), socialist, feminist and human rights campaigner, was born Mary Josephine Walsh on 6 October 1895, in Eadestown, Rathmore, Co. Kildare, to John Walsh, who farmed 70 acres there (28.3 hectares), and his wife Martha (née Cullen), a national school teacher. Her…...
Kemmy, James Joseph Oliver Mary (‘Jim’)
Kemmy, James Joseph Oliver Mary (‘Jim’) (1936–97), trade unionist, Labour politician, and local historian, was born 14 September 1936 in O'Curry St., Limerick, eldest of three sons and two daughters of Michael Kemmy and Elizabeth Kemmy (née Pilkington). His mother came from farming…...
Lowther, Sir Gerrard (Gerard)
Lowther, Sir Gerrard (Gerard) (1590–1660), lawyer and judge, was probably the natural son of Christopher Lowther of Penrith, Cumberland. He matriculated at Queen's College, Oxford, on 7 June 1605. He entered Gray's Inn in 1608 and was called to the bar in 1614. He was in Dublin as…...
Moriarty, John Stephen
Moriarty, John Stephen (1938–2007), philosopher and shaman, was born 2 February 1938 at Moyvane, near Listowel, Co. Kerry, fourth of six children (two sons and four daughters) of James Moriarty, smallholder and native speaker of Irish (with eleven cows and 'thirty-two acres of bad,…...
Norcott, William
Norcott, William (1773?–1820), barrister, satirist, and bon vivant, was eldest son of William Norcott of Charleville, Co. Cork, and Mary Norcott (née Knight). He entered TCD in July 1790, graduating BA…...
Orpen, Goddard Henry
Orpen, Goddard Henry (1852–1932), lawyer and historian, was born on 8 May 1852 in Dublin, the fourth son of the five sons and three daughters of John Herbert Orpen, barrister, of Dublin, and Ellen Susan Gertrude, youngest daughter of Revd John Richards of Grange (latterly Monksgrange),…...
Redlich, (Mary) Patricia
Redlich, (Mary) Patricia (1940–2011), journalist and psychologist, was born on 1 December 1940 at the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street, Dublin, one of four daughters and a son born to Ben Cribbon, a clerk, and his wife Mary (née Crean). Growing up in the northside Dublin…...
Redpath, James
Redpath, James (1833–91), journalist, abolitionist and Land Leaguer, was born 24 August 1833 in Berwick-on-Tweed on the Anglo–Scottish border , eldest of nine children (two sons and two daughters survived to adulthood) of Ninian Davidson Redpath, schoolmaster, and his wife Maria (née…...
Steele, William
Steele, William (1610–80), barrister, privy counsellor, and lord chancellor of Ireland, was born in Sandbach, Cheshire, England, eldest among three sons of Richard Steele of Finchley, Middlesex, and his wife Laetitia (née Shaw). Steele matriculated at Caius College, Cambridge, in…...
Swift, (Laurence) John
Swift, (Laurence) John (1896–1990), trade unionist and labour historian, was born 26 August 1896 in Dundalk, Co. Louth, the eldest of two sons and two daughters of Patrick Swift, a master baker, and his wife Alice (née Deane), daughter of a Dundalk businessman. Known generally as…...
Toland, John
Toland, John (1670–1722), freethinker and polemical writer, was probably born in Inishowen, Co. Donegal, on 30 November 1670. Reputed to be the illegitimate son of a catholic priest, Toland may have been baptised ‘Joannes Eugenius’, which he later altered to a pen name, ‘Janus Junius’.…...
Tyndall, John
Tyndall, John (1820–93), scientist and mountaineer, was born 2 August 1820 in Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow, only son among two children of John Tyndall (1792–1847) and Sarah Tyndall (née McAssey; d. 1867). His father came from a family of small landowners in Co. Kilkenny, acted as…...
Wisdom, John Oulton (J. O.)
Wisdom, John Oulton (J. O.) (1908–93), philosopher and psychoanalyst, was born in Dublin on 29 December 1908, only child of Thomas Hume Wisdom, brewery clerk, and his English-born wife Jane, daughter of Dr Henry Oulton of St Stephen's Green. The Cambridge language philosopher Arthur…...