Irish People
Includes links and articles and discussion related to those great Irish people of the past: Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, and Michael Collins, to name but a few.
Peig Sayers (1873–1958) was an Irish author and seanachaà born in Dunquin (Dún Chaoin), County Kerry, Ireland. Seán Ó Súilleabháin, the former archivist for the Irish Folklore Commission, described her as "one of the greatest woman storytellers of recent times".
General Joseph Holt was the only United Irish General to be banished to New South Wales following his surrender in County Wicklow during the 1798 Irish Rebellion. The Bank of Ireland director, Peter La Touche and his wife, Elizabeth La Touche, as members of the Ascendancy, apparently helped orchestrate Joseph's safe surrender to Lord Powerscourt IV at 11 O'Clock on the 11th November 1798 at his demesne of, Powescurt, in County Wicklow.
Joseph Holt (1756-1826), Irish rebel and farmer, was one of the six sons of John Holt, a Protestant farmer of Ballydaniel, County Wicklow, Ireland. In 1782 he married Hester Long, daughter of a Protestant farmer of Roundwood, at the foot of the Wicklow mountains. Here Holt took up a farm and, as a trusted loyalist, held several minor local offices.
An introduction to Ó Súilleabháin's "Diary of an Irish Countryman", 1827-1835.
John Barry was born in a modest thatched cottage in 1745 at Ballysampson on Our Lady's Island, which is part of Tacumshin Parish in County Wexford, Ireland. Wexford, at the southeasternmost part of Ireland, has always had a strong maritime tradition. Yet Barry's father was a poor tenant farmer who was evicted by his British landlord. The family was forced to relocate to the village of Rosslare.
2008 marked the 250th anniversary of the birth of the Irish architect who designed the original White House. James Hoban was an Irishman, born in Kilkenny. George Washington chose the Irishman in 1792 when it came time to build the White House.
James Hoban was educated in his native Ireland, then immigrated to the new nation of America when he was 19. In 1792 he entered a competition to design an American Presidential palace, which, per President George Washington's wishes, was to have "the sumptuousness of a palace, the convenience of a house, and the agreeableness of a county seat". Nine entries were received, of which Hoban's design was judged the winner. The site for the mansion was selected by city planner Pierre Charles L'Enfant, and Hoban was paid $500. His design was inspired by Kildare House (now Leinster House), which was then headquarters of the Royal Dublin Society where Hoban apprenticed in architecture, and now houses the Irish Parliament.
Francis MacNamara was born in 1811 in Cashel, Ireland. He was transported to Botany Bay in 1832, then to Van Diemen's Land arriving 29 October 1842, by which time he was widely known as Frank the Poet. He left Launceston 23 August 1850 "Free by servitude".
On January 1, 1892, Annie Moore, a 15 year old girl from County Cork, became the first immigrant processed at Ellis Island. In honor of the 100th anniversary of this milestone, the IACI coordinated an international effort to have a commemorative statue of Annie Moore erected at Ellis Island, and at her Irish departure point, Cobh, in County Cork.
A website dedicated to one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era - Oscar Wilde. Offers easy access to the extensive collection of his works, biography, and more.
He wrote in both Irish and English, was a poet, short story writer, novelist and one of the most successful Irish dramatists of the 20th century. He was also a committed Irish Republican. He was born in inner city Dublin into an educated working class family. At the age of thirteen, he left school to become a house painter, like his father. In 1937, the family moved to a new local authority housing scheme in Crumlin, Dublin. Here he became a member of Fianna Eireann, the youth wing of the IRA and published his first poems and prose in the organization's magazine Fianna: the Voice of Young Ireland.
He was born Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde in Dublin, Ireland, to a doctor and a mother prominent in poetry and writing. His father took very little interest in him but provided him with an excellent education: Portora Royal School, studied classics at Trinity College, Dublin, Magdalen College, Oxford (Newdigate Prize for his poem Ravenna) He became involved with the aesthetic and decadent movements then began teaching its values in England and later lectured in the United States and Canada adding to his renown and notoriety - he called Niagara Falls "the bride's second disappointment."
"Cast a cold Eye On Life, on Death. Horseman pass by."
Generally considered one of the most influential authors of the twentieth century, James Joyce was one of the first authors to challenge the traditional concept of what a novel could be, alienating most of his contemporaries while earning a reputation that endures in literary scholarship. He was educated at Jesuit schools, including University College, Dublin.
Nicholas Delaney: Irish rebel in 1798, transported convict, Australian roadbuilder, innkeeper, farmer and ancestor. Our descent from Nicholas. By his great-great-great-granddaughter. As a young man living on the borders of Wicklow and Wexford in the east of Ireland, Nicholas Delaney was caught up in the violent events of the Irish Rebellion of 1798. After the rebels were defeated, he was tried and convicted of murder on the word of a notorious informer, Biddy Dolan. Sentenced to death, he was reprieved and sent as a convict to New South Wales.
Amhlaoibh Ó Súilleabháin (May 1780 Killarney, County Kerry-1838 Callan, County Kilkenny) was an Irish language author, linen draper, politician, and one time hedge school master. He is also known as Humphrey O'Sullivan. He was deeply involved in Daniel O'Connell's Catholic Emancipation movement and in relief work among the poor of County Kilkenny. He was also an avid bird watcher and a collector of rare manuscripts in the Irish language.
On 20 September 1803, Robert Emmet, patriot, was hanged, drawn and quartered in Thomas Street, Dublin. He was the last person to receive this barbaric sentence from a British court.
RTÉ Libraries and Archives look back at the life of one of Ireland's best-loved poets, as told by the poet himself and those who knew him. Patrick Kavanagh was born in Mucker, Inniskeen, County Monaghan, 21 October 1904. Having attended the local national school, Kavanagh worked as an apprentice shoemaker to his father and then on the small family farm. His first collection of poetry was published while he was still working on the farm. In 1939, Kavanagh moved to Dublin, where he became a full-time writer, contributing articles and poems to a number of publications and writing as a film critic for the Catholic journal 'The Standard'.
Old Bailey, the main courthouse in London, had never presented a show quite like the three trials that captivated England and much of the literary world in the spring of 1895. Celebrity, sex, witty dialogue, political intrique, surprising twists, and important issues of art and morality--is it any surprise that the trials of Oscar Wilde continue to fascinate one hundred years after the death of one of Ireland's greatest authors and playrights?
Includes such people as James Dalton, John Edward Redmond, Declan James Affley, and much, much more.
The Parish of Callan is the home of some famous personalities, including William Chandler, the founder of the Coca Cola company.
Bound volume of manuscripts and letters by Oscar Wilde, digitized by the Morgan Library in New York City.
Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847) was a great Irish statesman, called the Liberator of Ireland. He led a movement that successfully forced the British to pass the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, allowing Roman Catholics to become members of the British House of Commons.
You can read all about these people in a book entitled "Carlow International Achievers" by Jimmy O'Toole.
Now at Irish Life and Lore, over 3,000 voices have been captured as they discuss their own lives and histories, along with personal and family experiences of events in Irish national and social history.
Kevin Barry from Tombeagh, Hacketstown, Co. Carlow had attended national school in Rathvilly, Co. Carlow and secondary school in Belvedere College, Dublin and in 1920 he was a medical student in University College Dublin (U.C.D.).
Edward Robbins was born in Clara, County Offaly. He died in 1866 and was buried in San Pedro. This is his story.
With his fierce Irish nationalism, Thomas F. Meagher managed to get himself into difficulties on both sides of the Atlantic. Born in County Waterford, Ireland, he opposed British rule and was exiled to Tasmania in 1849.
Including John Tyndall (1820 - 1893), who discovered why the sky is blue.
Primarily based around Seamus Moran’s book 'Great Irish People', there are over 900 beautifully hand drawn original portraits of famous Irish men and women done by award winning Argentinean artists Gabriel and Diego Navarre.
In my opinion, John Lennon should be recognised as the greatest Irish singer ever: his California-based biographer Jon Wiener after all said that Lennon "thought of himself as Irish."
Historians take great pleasure in locating the birthplaces of great figures from the past. This is particularly true when the birthplace has been the subject of heated debate for centuries, as is the case for St Patrick, the 5th century Romano-Briton who later became patron saint of Ireland.
The Celts were a group of peoples that occupied lands stretching from the British Isles to Gallatia.
Michael Collins can easily be regarded as one of history's most intriguing and mysterious figures.
Grace Eveleen Gifford was born March 4, 1888 at her family home in Rathmines, an affluent Dublin suburb.
A collection of Oscar Wilde quotes. All quotes are verified manually and once you register you can submit new quotes and collect your favorite ones.
Few Americans are well-acquainted with the gallantry and heroic exploits of Philadelphia's Irish-born naval commander, Commodore John Barry.
Perhaps the biggest myth about the Irish in South America is the one that appeared in Eire-Ireland, the scholarly US journal of Irish studies, in 1965. There, the novelist and librarian William B. Ready wrote that the Argentine Irish were 'money-grubbing bourgeoisie' and that the Irish 'contributed little to the South American way of life, except a pattern of Puritanical thrift and industry'.
Son of Irish immigrants earns immortality in World War II.
Myles Walter Keogh was born on March 25, 1840, at Orchard House, a stone dwelling that still stands near the village of Leighlinbridge, County Carlow.
Michael D. Higgins, Mary McAleese, Mary Robinson, Patrick J Hillery, Cearbhall O Dalaigh, Erskine Childers, Eamon De Valera, Sean T O'Ceallaigh, and Douglas Hyde.
When I first became a Senator, the one thing that really surprised me was how much important work went on in Leinster House, almost unknown to the general public.
Most Irish-Americans would be happy to be able to trace their ancestors a few more generations beyond the immigrant or back into the 16th century as is possible in many countries.
Eoin O'Duffy emerged from the War of Independence with a well-deserved reputation that his Civil War opponent Ernie O'Malley described as "energetic and commanding".
The John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts provides JFK's biography, famous speeches, photographs and more.
Ireland in the 10th century had been dominated by the power of the Uí Néill but, curiously, it was their own zealousness that led to the rise of their most effective opponent in the race for the High Kingship.
In 1640, John Atherton, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, was hanged in Ireland for sodomy under a law that he had helped to institute. The sensational Atherton case was frequently cited in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as warning of the fate of men who engaged in same-sex sexual relations.
Jack Hepenstal was a lieutenent in the Irish Yeomanry, who earned himself the nickname of "The Walking Gallows" at the time of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
In his authoritative study, Ancestors of American Presidents (2009 Edition), Gary Boyd Roberts has drawn together the work of a large number of individuals and groups, and the research of his co-workers in the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston is particularly in evidence.
A collection of over 80 primary source First World War letters sent from son to mother at home in Ireland.
In Ireland, three categories of disadvantage were established initially in 1975.
From the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. Type the name, or title, of the person sought into the box and then press the "Search now" button.
John Gibbons of Hazelrock, Killawalla Parish Co. Mayo Ireland. Gibbons wrote many poems about the people and villages of Killawalla.
The life and military career of Myles Walter Keogh, born March 25th, 1840 at Orchard, Leighlinbridge, County Carlow.
An esteemed correspondent favours us with the follow-ing. John Langly, an Englishman who settled in Ireland, where he died, left the following extraordinary will:
Extracts from the Private memorandum Book of Captain George Gafney, of Kilkenny, an Officer in the Army of James II. By the Rev. James Graves. Published in the Proceedings and Transactions of the Kilkenny and South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society. Vol. III, 1854-55. pp. 161- 172.
The Irish National Anthem, Amhrán na bhFiann (The Soldier's Song) has been the subject of much comment in recent years. I am reliably informed by the 'educated' types who listen to the Irish national airways.
On the night of Friday, the 18th of May 1798, Lord Edward Fitzgerald came to my house, No. 153 Thomas Street, in company with a lady, (A Mrs. Moore, in whose husband’s house, No. 119 Thomas street, Lord Edward had been previously concealed) about the hour of ten or eleven o’clock at night.
Arthur Gerald Geoghegan, who was born in Dublin on the 1st of June 1810 entered into the Civil Service on June 12th 1830. He wrote poems for the 'Dublin Journal of Temperance'; 'Science and Literature'; the 'Irish Penny Journal'; the 'Dublin University Magazine'; the 'Irish Monhtly' and in its early years The Nation.
Denny Lane, one of the most popular of the young Ireland leaders, and the writer of the two well-known poems, "Kate of Araglen" and " Lament of the Irish Maiden," was born in Cork on the 7th of December, 1818, the only child of Maurice Lane, proprietor of the Glyntown Distillery, Riverstown, Cork.
Proceedings of the County Kildare Archealogical Society.
Patrick O’Donoghue, a Carlow man (born in Clonegall), who was employed as a Law Clerk in Dublin and who was one of the most active members of the Irish Confederation in the City, had the distinction of editing a paper, the ‘Irish Exile’, while undergoing a sentence of transportation in Van Dieman’s Land with Smith O’Brien, Mitchel, Meagher, Martin and McManus. He succeeded in escaping to the United States in 1852.
Gentlemen, I am now about to surrender the office which you intrusted to me. Its duties, up to the last night of the session, may be well discharged by any man of common courtesy and firmness.
Men, are ever valued most for peculiar and original qualities. A man who can only talk commonplace, and act according to routine, has little weight.
I am asked what I have to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced on me, according to law. I have nothing to say that can alter your pre-determination, nor that it will become me to say, with any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are to pronounce and I must abide by.
Twelve months before Wolfe Tone expired in his prison cell, one of the bravest of his associates paid with his life the penalty of his attachment to the cause of Irish independence.
The first step on the road to freedom is to realise ourselves as Irishwomen - not as Irish or merely as women, but as Irishwomen doubly enslaved and with a double battle to fight.
"The Croppy Boy" one of the finest of our ballads, was written by W. B. Burney, a County Down man, who used the pseudonym "Carroll Malone".
Mary Eva Kelly was born in Headford, County Galway about the year 1825, and was little more than a child when she began to write verse. She was educated at home by her mother and a governess.
John Thomas Campion, a young medical man, who was born in Kilkenny, contributed to the first number of 'The Nation', and continued to publish poetry in it for many years.
Dr. Robert Cane, who was born in Kilkenny in 1807, was a prominent member of the Repeal Association and of the Irish Confederation. He was educated in Dublin, qualified as M.D. in 1836, and spent the rest of his life in Kilkenny, where he practised his profession and took an active part in national affairs.
Speaking at a meeting in Dublin, Sunday, August 30, 1914, to commemorate the deaths of James Nolan, John Byrne and Alice Brady, killed during the Dublin Lockout, 1913-14, Connolly said ...
Gerald Griffin, Irish Novelist, Poet and Dramatic writer, was born in Limerick. He received his early education at the School then conducted by Richard McElligott.
It has seemed right, before we turn away from this place in which we have laid the mortal remains of O’Donovan Rossa, that one among us should, in the name of all, speak the praise of that valiant man, and endeavour to formulate the thought and the hope that are in us as we stand around his grave.
Famous sons, daughters and grandsons of Derry city and county include...
Letter from John Feeney in Longford, Ireland to his brother Francis Feeney in Pennsylvania, America...
THE FOLLOWING IS THE PETITION OF THE PROTESTANTS OF IRELAND IN FAVOUR OF CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION, TO BOTH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.