Cousins, also known as Gretta Cousins, is born into a Protestant and Unionist family. She is the eldest of fifteen children of Joseph Gillespie, a petty sessionclerk, and Margaret Annie Gillespie (née Shera). She excels academically, earning a scholarship to Victoria High School for Girls in Derry. In 1898, she moved to Dublin and studies music at the Royal Irish Academy of Music before attending the Royal University of Ireland, graduating with a BMus in 1902. She marries poet and literary criticJames Cousins on April 9, 1903, and maintains her independence by continuing to work as a music teacher.
Cousins is deeply involved in the Irish women’s suffrage movement. She co-founds the Irish Women’s Franchise League with Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington in 1908, serving as its first treasurer, and actively participates in protests, including the Parliament of Women in 1910 and demonstrations against the Second Home Rule Bill in 1913, which leads to her imprisonment in Tullamore Jail. She is also a committed vegetarian and engages with the Irish Vegetarian Society, promoting social reform and ethical living.
Cousins also plays a key role in preserving the tune of the Indian National Anthem, Jana Gana Mana, and is part of the Flag Presentation Committee that presents the National Flag to the Constituent Assembly of India in 1947. She later founds the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC), further cementing her legacy in advancing women’s rights in India.
A stroke leaves Cousins paralysed from 1943 onward. She receives financial support from the Madras government, and later Jawaharlal Nehru, in recognition of her services to India. She dies at the age of 75 on March 1, 1954, in Adyar, Chennai.
Cousins’ work bridges Irish and Indian social reform movements, combining her interests in education, feminism, and Theosophy. She is recognized for her contributions to women’s rights and education, and her efforts leave a lasting impact on both countries. Her manuscripts are dispersed in various collections across the world.
Hogan’s father is a wheelwright and musician who also crafts flutes and fiddles, instruments Hogan himself plays. He and his family endure the hardships of the Great Famine (1845–1852), an experience he later reflects upon in his poetry. In his youth, he works at Russell’s Mill and Lock Quay, later joining Limerick Corporation. In 1858, he marries Ann Lynch, with whom he has no children.
Hogan’s first poems appears in Irish language newspapers such as The Anglo-Celt, The Irishman, The Nation, The Munster News, and the Limerick Leader. His debut collection, Lays and Legends of Thomond, is published in Limerick in 1861, with a larger Dublin edition in 1867. He also gains fame for a series of satirical poems lampooning prominent Limerick figures, which achieves enormous circulation and causes a sensation at the time. A new edition of his Lays and Legends is published in Dublin in 1880.
In September 1886, Hogan emigrates to New York, where, already hampered by failing eyesight, he fails to make a living for himself as a poet and soon finds himself in financial difficulties. Having received assistance from friends in Limerick, he returns to Ireland in 1889.
Hogan dies on April 19, 1899, at Limerick and is buried in Mount St. Lawrence Cemetery.
Hogan’s work remains a significant part of Irish literary history. In 2005, a life-size statue (pictured) of him is erected at King John’s Castle Plaza in Limerick to honor his memory.
The LFA is established to promote and organize association football in the Irish province of Leinster, an area outside the traditional Ulster heartlands of the sport. The founding meeting is attended by representatives of five football clubs: Dublin University A.F.C., Bohemian F.C., Leinster Nomads A.F.C., Montpelier F.C., and St. Helen’s School F.C. Rev. Canon Morley of St. Helen’s School chairs the meeting, and Dudley T. Hussey of Bohemians is appointed the first honorary secretary.
Shortly after its creation, the LFA affiliates with the Belfast-based Irish Football Association (IFA), which donates £50 to support the new association. The LFA quickly organizes its first Leinster Senior Cup in the 1892–93 season, with Leinster Nomads defeating Dublin University 2–1 in the inaugural final. Soon after, the Leinster Senior League is formed, featuring clubs such as Bohemians, Britannia, Dublin University, Leinster Nomads, Phoenix, and Montpelier.
The primary aim of the LFA is to foster football in Leinster at a time when the sport is largely concentrated in Ulster. It becomes a key driver in promoting amateur and youth football, organizing leagues, and holding cup competitions for clubs across the province.
The LFA eventually becomes disaffiliated from the IFA in 1921 due to disputes over perceived Belfast bias, Sunday matches, and differences in focus between amateur and professional football. This leads directly to the establishment of the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) in September 1921, in which the LFA plays a leading role.
In summary, the Leinster Football Association’s founding in 1892 marks the beginning of organized football governance in southern Ireland, overseeing competitions and nurturing clubs outside Ulster, and its establishment remains a key milestone in Irish football history.
In 1880, while living in Bordentown, New Jersey, Parnell becomes active in fundraising for the Land League in the United States. Her 1880 pamphlet The Hovels of Ireland explains the Irish land crisis to American audiences, and she also works for the Famine Relief Fund in New York.
By October 1880, Parnell has taken the initiative to launch a Ladies’ Land League in New York. This is an auxiliary group aimed at supporting the Irish National Land League’s work, especially after its leaders become at risk of imprisonment. The New York committee she sets up is part of a broader plan by Michael Davitt to ensure the movement can continue if male leaders are jailed. Davitt and the League’s treasurer, Patrick Egan, later persuade the Central Committee to formally establish the Ladies’ Land League in Dublin on January 31, 1881, with Anna Parnell as its first president.
The Ladies’ Land League quickly becomes the first political association of Irish women, organizing branches in Ireland, Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They maintain a detailed “Book of Kells” register of estates, tenants, and evictions, and provide financial and material aid to evicted tenants, including erecting prefabricated huts when possible. Their work is both political and humanitarian, challenging gender norms while maintaining a public image of respectability.
Fanny Parnell’s October 1880 launch in New York is thus a key early step in mobilizing Irish American women for the Land War, laying the groundwork for the League’s transnational activism and its role in sustaining the movement during its most turbulent years.
Sullivan is the son of Michael Sullivan from Abbeydorney, County Kerry, and Catherine Kelly from Drum, County Roscommon. He attends public schools in his native Boston, attending the Dwight Grammar School and performing well academically. His parents aspire for their son to enter the priesthood as a Catholic priest. To this end he enrolls at Boston College, but his passion for sports leads him to abandon formal education for professional baseball and later boxing. He quickly gains a reputation for raw power and aggression, earning the nickname “The Boston Strong Boy” during exhibition tours.
Sullivan holds the gloved heavyweight title from 1882 to 1892, with a record of 41–1–3 and 33 knockouts.
Sullivan’s fights are widely covered by newspapers, helping to launch modern sports journalism in the United States. He is one of the highest-paid athletes of his era, earning over $75,000 for a single bout. His “I can lick any man in the house” challenge becomes a symbol of Irish American defiance and determination.
After retiring in 1892, Sullivan opens the John L. Sullivan’s Theatre in New York City. He marries Annie Bates Lord in 1883 and has one daughter, Helen. He struggles with alcohol after his defeat to James J. Corbett in 1892 but later lectures against alcoholism. He dies at the age of 59 on February 2, 1918, in Abington, Plymouth County, Massachusetts. He is buried at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Roslindale, Suffolk County, Massachusetts.
Sullivan’s career transforms boxing from an underground, often illegal pastime into a national spectacle. He remains a cultural icon, celebrated in literature, film, and sports history.
O’Connell is one of eleven children of farmer John O’Connell and Mary Ann O’Connell (née O’Sullivan). She is educated in County Kerry, and emigrates to Chicago in 1904 where she trains to be a secretary. She leaves a well-paid commercial job in 1912 to become secretary to the American delegation of the Gaelic League in New York City. She works closely with Thomas Ashe and Diarmuid Lynch on fund-raising and handles their secret Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) correspondence. She returns to Ireland briefly in 1915 to attend the Gaelic League Oireachtas na Gaeilge and ardfheis, voting in favour of the politicisation of the organisation. During the same visit she brings money and messages to the Irish Volunteers from John Devoy. She attends the New York Irish Race Convention, going on to work for the Friends of Irish Freedom. In this position she organises and collects for the “victory fund” for Irish independence. She is also a typist for Clan na Gael. After the 1916 Easter Rising, she becomes a member of Cumann na mBan in the United States, raising money for the widows and children of those killed or wounded during the Rising. It is through this work that she becomes a close friend of Arthur Griffith and his family.
Éamon de Valera requests that O’Connell join his “consular staff” on October 2, 1919, to support his tour of the United States. She works closely with him during this tour, traveling with him, assisting with speeches and dealing with his private and public correspondence. She is privy to secrets of the independence movement due to handling Harry Boland‘s correspondence as well. In November 1920, she returns to Ireland with de Valera and goes into hiding immediately. From February 1921 she lives at his secret headquarters at Strand Road, living in dangerous conditions until a truce is called in the Irish War of Independence. After this she lives with de Valera at Dr. Farnan’s house at Merrion Square and later in Blackrock. On June 22, 1921, she is arrested with him, and they are both released the next day. She is a member of the delegation that meets David Lloyd George in July 1921, and shares de Valera’s opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. She joins de Valera and her sister Teresa in Suffolk Street in June 1922 when the Irish Civil War breaks out.
When fighting ends in Dublin in July 1922, she travels south, working closely with Dorothy Macardle, Robert Brennan, and Erskine Childers establishing a publicity department and publishing Poblacht na hÉireann. In September 1922, she returns to Dublin, and goes into hiding at 11 Upper Mount Street. She is a loyal follower of de Valera throughout the civil war, and is present at his arrest in Ennis in August 1923. She acts as his messenger and agent during his imprisonment, working with him on an Irish translation of shorthand which they later abandon. During this time she also works for the Sinn FéinTD for Mayo NorthP. J. Ruttledge.
O’Connell is present at the first meeting of the provisional organising committee of de Valera’s new political party, Fianna Fáil. During this time she continues to travel with de Valera, nationally and internationally. There are rumours regarding the nature of their relationship, leading to de Valera vehemently denying any impropriety in Dáil Éireann in 1928. The letter between O’Connell and de Valera’s wife, Sinéad, are cited as evidence there is no intimate relationship between O’Connell and de Valera. She resigns from her permanent civil service position of personal secretary to the Taoiseach when de Valera is defeated in 1948, returning in 1951 when he regains power. For her involvement in the Irish War of Independence, she is awarded an Irish military pension.
Colles is born in Dublin around 1739. He emigrates to the American colonies before the American Revolutionary War, where he becomes known for his skills in engineering, surveying, and mathematics. His education and early interests equip him for projects requiring practical application of technical knowledge in a colonial context.
Colles is best remembered for his work in designing and constructing water supply systems, such as aqueducts and canals. In New York City, he proposes plans to improve the city’s water distribution, anticipating modern municipal water infrastructure.
Colles also works extensively as a surveyor and cartographer. One of his major projects is a comprehensive survey of roads, settlements, and natural features across parts of New York State, aimed at promoting economic development and providing practical maps for settlers and entrepreneurs. These maps are notable for their detail and practical utility in an era when accurate geographic information is scarce.
In addition to engineering, Colles is an innovator in education and public information. He seeks to publish a tourist map of New York State, combining cartographic detail with travel guidance. Later in life, he develops ideas for mechanical inventions, such as improvements to water-lifting devices and surveying instruments, although many of his designs remain conceptual or are implemented only on a limited scale.
Colles is remembered as a forward-thinking engineer who attempted to bring systematic planning and technological innovation to the early United States. His work in surveying and water systems helped lay the groundwork for later infrastructural developments and inspired future engineers. Despite facing financial difficulties and limited recognition during his lifetime, his contributions reflect the blend of practical engineering and visionary thinking that characterized American technical pioneers of his era.
Colles’s maps and published plans remain valuable records of early American geography and urban planning, illustrating both the challenges and ambitions of post-colonial infrastructure development.
McCarthy’s early career was meteoric: his first book, An outline of Irish history from the earliest times, appears in 1883 and is a fast-moving, strongly worded, nationalist sketch of Irish history. This is followed by a heavy-handed dramatic poem, Serapion (1883), about the early Christian era. In June of the following year he is returned as the Home Rule LeagueMP for Athlone on the death of the sitting member, and also publishes, to excellent reviews, England under Gladstone, which runs to a second edition within a year. In November 1884, his first play, The Candidate, is an overnight success in the Criterion Theatre in London. Its plot is thin but the humour and political badinage ensures it a long run.
At the 1885 United Kingdom general election McCarthy is elected nationalist MP for Newry, and he holds this seat until 1892. In the two years after his election he writes a number of novels, translates works from Persian, and writes Ireland Since the Union (1887), which is well researched, nationalist and impassioned in tone, showing a flair for biographical sketches. During this period he is known for his good attendance in the House of Commons though he does not speak much – throughout his life he is more an observer than a participator – and he is said by William O’Brien to conceal “under the gentlest of exteriors the fire of the ‘Spirit of the Nation’ ballad” (New Ireland Review, 523). In London he is well known for his controversial drama reviews in The Gentleman’s Magazine and the Sunday Sun, and in Dublin for his numerous verse and prose contributions to United Ireland. Although he makes a name for himself as a brilliant young man, he never fulfills his early promise.
In later years McCarthy continues to publish prolifically but produces only ephemeral works, and his parliamentary attendance slackens off. His political commitment is soured possibly by the party’s split in 1890. He originally sides with Charles Stewart Parnell, emphasizing in a speech on December 1, 1890, that he believes in the old-fashioned theory of personal loyalty to a leader. However, five days later he causes a minor drama by rising at the last minute to follow his father and the forty-three other anti-Parnellites, claiming that he feels he must abide by the decision of the majority. Two years later he leaves politics for good without standing in the 1892 United Kingdom general election. A sympathetic profile of him in the New Ireland Review in 1894 remarks that “no man of equal talents made so slight an impression on the political world.”
Thereafter McCarthy has less involvement in Irish affairs and writes no more Irish history books, though his novels continue to have Irish themes. He lives in London in Putney Common, and continues to travel widely. In 1894, he marries in some haste a popular comic actress, Cecilia Loftus, and the event is widely reported in the English press. However, the marriage is dissolved in the United States five years later. In 1908, his second marriage is to Loullie, daughter of Henry Killick of Budapest. He continues to enjoy success as a dramatist and has five plays, four sketches, and three duologues performed in London in the 1890s. However, he concentrates increasingly on historical fiction, which he produces at breakneck speed. In the first decade of the twentieth century he writes over twelve novels based on periods in English, Italian, French, and Irish history. The Illustrious O’Hagan (1906), The O’Flynn (1910), and The King Over the Water (1911) pointedly contradict English stereotypes of the “stage Irishman.” The Fair Irish Maid (1911) is an allegory of the Irish Parliamentary Party‘s political marriage to the ordinary Irish people rather than to the Anglo-Irishascendancy.
McCarthy dies at home in Putney on March 20, 1936 aged 79, although his obituaries all put his age at 75.
(From: “McCarthy, Justin Huntly” by Bridget Hourican, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)
Reed is the son of John Reed of Galway and Mary Adamson of County Meath. He is educated at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) and called to the Bar in 1873. He enters the Royal Irish Constabulary and is appointed District Inspector in 1859; becoming Inspector-General in 1885. He retires 1900.
Aside from being the only RIC cadet officer to be promoted to Inspector General, Reed changes the rules for promotion in the Royal Irish Constabulary. Up until his tenure, Catholics had little success in attaining promotions. Even though most of the force is Catholic, almost all the officers are non-Catholic. He institutes a rule that each year, sixty men who are Catholic and pass the Sergeant’s exam will be promoted.
Reed is appointed a Knight Bachelor in 1889, a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1892, a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in 1900 and a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in 1897.
Reed dies in Dublin on November 7, 1914, and is buried in Dean’s Grange Cemetery. His epitaph reads: – “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.” (3 John 4.)
Devlin is born in 1780 in Cronebeg, near Aughrim, County Wicklow, the second of four daughters and three sons of Bryan and Winifred (née Byrne) Devlin, who are Catholics engaged in farming. Her father and several relatives are members of the Society of United Irishmen, advocating for Irish independence. Though she and her immediate family do not initially participate in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, they provide shelter and assistance to rebels, and their home is destroyed by Crown forces, while her father is imprisoned until 1801.
After the family moves to Rathfarnham, Dublin, Devln becomes the housekeeper for Robert Emmet in April 1803, providing cover for his Dublin operations planning a nationalist uprising. She actively aids the United Irishmen by arranging meetings, transporting arms, and acting as a messenger to insurgent forces, notably her cousin Michael Dwyer in the Wicklow Mountains. The rebellion carefully orchestrated for July 23, 1803, collapses due to inadequate popular support and confusion among the rebels.
Following the failed uprising, Devlin and her family are arrested. She endures brutal interrogation by Major Henry Charles Sirr and is subjected to half-hanging, solitary confinement, and threats against her family, yet she refuses to reveal any critical information about Emmet or other conspirators. She spends over two years in Kilmainham Gaol and, despite her endurance, her health is permanently affected. She is released in 1806 after sustained lobbying and public outrage over her mistreatment.
After her release, Devlin works as a maid and laundress, initially assisted by the Emmet family and their acquaintances. She marries William Campbell in 1811, though she experiences increasing poverty after his death in 1845. She continues to be remembered for her courage, and her experiences are recorded by historians and contemporaries such as Dr. Richard Robert Madden and Brother Luke Cullen, preserving her memoirs and accounts of her revolutionary involvement.
Devlin dies on September 18, 1851, in Dublin and is interred at Glasnevin Cemetery, later commemorated with a monument and Celtic cross.
Devlin is widely celebrated as Ireland’s first female political prisoner and a symbol of loyalty and courage. A statue in Rathfarnham, annual memorial services in Dublin’s St. Catherine’s Church, and the naming of community centers in her honor (e.g., Anne Devlin Community Centre, 2026) reflect her enduring impact. Her life has inspired literature and film, including Pat Murphy‘s 1984 movie Anne Devlin, which portrays her perspective during the Emmet rebellion. She is credited in James Joyce’s short story “A Mother” as a model for the character Mrs. Kearney.
Anne Devlin’s life embodies courage, steadfast nationalism, and sacrifice. She actively supports Robert Emmet and the United Irishmen, suffers imprisonment without betrayal, and faces lifelong hardship, yet remains commemorated as a heroine of Irish independence.
(Pictured: Anne Devlin statue in Rathfarnham, Dublin)
