This April the Dictionary of Irish Biography (DIB) is publishing thirty-nine new entries, including a mix of contemporary figures, ‘missing persons’, and specially commissioned biographies for our recently published Irish Sporting Lives. Among the notable contemporary figures are soccer manager Jack Charlton (1935–2020), former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party James Molyneaux (1920–2015), broadcaster Derek Davis (1948–2015) and artist Basil Blackshaw (1932–2016), while our ‘missing persons’ include aviator Mary Bailey (1890–1960), sole survivor of the Ballyseedy massacre Stephen Fuller (1900–1984), and executioner Elizabeth Sugrue (1740/50–1807), who was known as ‘Lady Betty’. Our sports figures include boxing promoter Clara ‘Ma’ Copley (1865–1949), footballer Molly Seaton (1905–1974) and camogie captain Mollie Gill (1891–1977), among others.
The DIB was delighted to host a workshop in the Royal Irish Academy on 24 March, which examined ways in which early modern women might be better represented within our corpus. The workshop was the latest step in an ongoing collaboration between the DIB and scholars of early modern Ireland, and we are very pleased to publish five new entries that are the first fruits of this collaboration: poet Lady Hester Pulter (1605–1678), educationist Dorothy Moore (1612/13–64), and members of the Boyle family: Margaret Boyle (1623–1689), Elizabeth Boyle (1613–1691) and Alice Barry (1608–1667).
Other newly published entries include home rule opponent and high-profile kidnap victim James Francis Bernard (1850–1924); prolific novelist, short story writer and translator Ethel Mayne (1865–1941); member of the White Stag group of artists Thurloe Conolly (1918–2016); journalist, soldier and Ireland’s leading expert on, and advocate for, the League of Nations Bolton Waller (1890–1936); jazz guitarist Louis Stewart (1944–2016); and judge of the supreme court and president of the Law Reform Commission Tony Hederman.