Abraham, James Johnston
Abraham, James Johnston (1876–1963), surgeon and writer, was born 16 August 1876 in Kingsgate St., Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, son of William Abraham (1849–1933) of Co. Fermanagh, tea merchant, general supplier, JP, and methodist circuit…...
Altman, Albert Liebes Lascar
Altman, Albert Liebes Lascar (c.1853–1903), businessman and nationalist politician, was born c.1853 in Prussian Poland, the son of Moritz Altman (born Shagra Moshe ben Aharon) and his wife Deborah (born Devorah bat Chaim Liebes). He was the eldest of four surviving…...
Bennis, Elizabeth (Eliza)
Bennis, Elizabeth (Eliza) (1725–1802), methodist activist and diarist, was probably born in Limerick, one of two surviving daughters of Isaac and Alice (née Mitchell) Patten . The Pattens were presbyterian, and Elizabeth had a conventionally pious upbringing and evidently received…...
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,…...
Buchanan, George Henry Perrott
Buchanan, George Henry Perrott (1904–89), journalist and writer, was born 9 January 1904 in Kilwaughter, Co. Antrim, second child and younger of two sons and one daughter of the Rev. Charles Henry Leslie Buchanan (1863–1939) and Florence Buchanan (née Moore). He was educated at…...
Cuffe, Ellen Odette
Cuffe, Ellen Odette (1857–1933), countess of Desart, philanthropist, and senator, was born 1 September 1857 in London into a Jewish family, eldest daughter of Henri Louis Bischoffsheim (1829–1908), millionaire banker, and Clarisse Bischoffsheim (née Biedermann), and educated privately.…...
Edelstein, (Eli) Joseph
Edelstein, (Eli) Joseph (1886–1939), writer and public speaker, was born 30 August 1886 at 31 Warren Street, Portobello, Dublin, son of Abraham Maurice Edelstein, a commercial traveller who later went into business as a picture-frame maker and gilder, and his wife Jane (née Moisel);…...
Frankau, Julia (‘Frank Danby’)
Frankau, Julia (‘Frank Danby’) (1859–1916), art historian and novelist, was born 30 July 1859 in Dublin, into an English Jewish family, seventh among nine children of Hyman Davis (d. 1871), dentist and later artist/photographer, and his wife Isabella. Her parents arrived in Dublin in…...
Glucksman, Lewis
Glucksman, Lewis (1925–2006), philanthropist and businessman, was born 22 December 1925 in New York, the second of three children of Jack Glucksman, owner of a factory that manufactured table lamps, and his wife Zipporah. His parents were second-generation Hungarian Jews. Raised in…...
Goldberg, Gerald Yael
Goldberg, Gerald Yael (1912–2003), solicitor, politician and writer, was born 12 April 1912 in Cork city, eleventh of twelve surviving children of Louis J. Goldberg, peddler and shopkeeper, and his wife Rachel (née Sandler). His birth name was Yael or Yoel; the anglicised ‘Gerald’ was…...
Gordon, Maurice Leonard (‘Maurie’)
Gordon, Maurice Leonard (‘Maurie’) (1910–90), sports administrator, businessman, and community activist, was born 10 January 1910 in Leeds, England, only son and elder of two children of Joseph Gordon (originally Seltzer), textile worker from Russia, and Bessie Gordon (née Bellow…...
Herzog, Chaim (‘Vivian’)
Herzog, Chaim (‘Vivian’) (1918–97), Israeli soldier, lawyer, businessman, diplomat, and politician, was born 17 September 1918 at 2 Norman Villas, Cliftonville Rd, Belfast, elder of two sons of Isaac Herzog (qv), rabbi,…...
Hewitt, John Harold
Hewitt, John Harold (1907–87), poet, was born 28 October 1907 at 96 Clifton Park Avenue, Belfast, the younger of two children (his sister, Eileen, was born 20 February 1902) of Robert Telford Hewitt, schoolmaster, and Elinor Hewitt (née Robinson). Both of his paternal grandparents had…...
Jaffé, Sir Otto
Jaffé, Sir Otto (1846–1929), businessman and philanthropist, was born 13 August 1846 in Hamburg, Germany, third son among four sons and five daughters of Daniel Joseph Jaffé (1809–74) and his wife Frederiké. Daniel Joseph Jaffé was a merchant in the Hamburg firm of Jaffé Brothers, who…...
Keohler (Keller), Thomas Goodwin
Keohler (Keller), Thomas Goodwin (1873–1942), writer, company secretary and long-time friend of James Joyce (qv), was born in Belfast on 19 June 1873 to Joshua William Keohler, a methodist who was in the flour business, and…...
Leventhal, Abraham Jacob (‘Con’)
Leventhal, Abraham Jacob (‘Con’) (1896–1979), lecturer, essayist, and critic, was born 9 May 1896 in Lower Clanbrassil St., Dublin, son of Moses (Maurice) Leventhal, draper, and Rosa Leventhal (née Levenberg). He was reared in an orthodox Jewish family; his mother, a poet and lifelong…...
Levine, June
Levine, June (1931–2008), feminist, journalist and author, was born Stephanie June Levine in the Rotunda hospital, Dublin, on 31 December 1931, eldest child of Charles Solomon ('Solly') Levine, a cabinet maker, the son of Jewish parents who fled from Latvia, and his wife Muriel Ruth (…...
Lewis, Helen
Lewis, Helen (1916–2009), Holocaust survivor, dance teacher, choreographer and memoirist, was born Helena Katz on 22 June 1916 into a well-off Jewish family in Bohemia in the Austro-Hungarian empire (Bohemia became part of the new state of Czechoslovakia in 1918). She was an only child…...
Malley, James Young (‘Jim’)
Malley, James Young (‘Jim’) (1918–2000), civil servant and airman, was born 24 July 1918 near Aughnacloy, Co. Tyrone, one of four sons and one daughter of Francis William Malley, a local farmer and merchant, and his wife Ruby Elizabeth (née Young). The family was methodist. He…...
Marcus, David
Marcus, David (1924–2009), author, editor and journalist, was born on 21 August 1924 in his parents' house on the Mardyke in Cork city, son of Solomon Marcus, picture framer, and his wife Frances (née Goldberg), a sister of Gerald Goldberg…...
McDougall, Margaret Moran
McDougall, Margaret Moran (1826–99), author and journalist, was born 25 December 1826, according to family records (though her obituary said 25 December 1828), probably in Co. Antrim. Her father, J. Moran (or William Henry) Dixon , tailor, died in Galgorm, Co. Antrim, when…...
Nathan, Sir Matthew
Nathan, Sir Matthew (1862–1939), soldier and administrator, was born 3 January 1862, second son among nine children of Jonah Nathan and Miriam Nathan (née Jacobs) of London. Both his parents were Jewish; his father – of German origin and a partner in the paper-making firm of Thomas de…...
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…...
O'Brien, Sophie Raffalovich
O'Brien, Sophie Raffalovich (1860–1960), writer and activist, was born in Odessa on 15 January 1860, daughter of Herman Raffalovich , banker, and his wife, Marie. She had two brothers: André, who became well known as a homosexual aesthete, and Ernest, a banker and tsarist agent…...
Ó Glaisne, Risteárd
Ó Glaisne, Risteárd (1927–2003), teacher, ecumenist and journalist, was born 2 September 1927 in Bandon, Co. Cork, the third of four children of George William Giles and his wife Sara Jane (née Vickery). He attended Bandon Grammar School and Trinity College Dublin (TCD), graduating…...