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Patricia Mulholland was the founder of the Irish Ballet School in Belfast and of the Irish Ballet Company, which made its debut in 1951 during the Festival of Britain in the Empire Theatre, Belfast. In 1953, at the request of the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), Mulholland devised and produced the first Irish folk ballet, Cuchulain. A further group of ballets was sponsored by CEMA, including The Piper, The Dream of Angus Óg and Follow Me Down to Carlow. Other works in her extensive choreography, strongly influenced by Irish legends and folklore, include The Mother of Oisín, The Black Rogue, The Oul’ Lammas Fair in 1900, The Children of Lír, Phil the Fluter’s Ball and The Hound of Culann. Mulholland’s choreographies were not ballet in the classical sense but a form of folk ballet – Irish mythology interpreted by Irish dancers to Irish music and song. Patricia Mulholland is regarded as one of the most influential figures of twentieth-century Irish traditional dancing and the founder of Festival Dance, a specialised form of Irish dancing which focuses on the individuality of each dancer’s style, thus breaking away from the more rigid and formulaic ‘Feis’ style.

Ingrid Nachstern is the daughter of English-born Evelyn Graham and Ukrainian-born Polish violinist Arthur Nachstern (1911-1999), one-time leader of the National Symphony Orchestra. She grew up in Dublin and studied French and Italian at Trinity College and German at the Goethe institute. She also learnt ballet from the age of 3 under the instruction of Muriel Catt but gave it up at 17. She took up dancing again in her 30s, taking ballet classes with Richard Sugarman in Toronto and Joanna Banks in Dublin. In 1996, Nachstern completed the Royal Academy of Dance teacher training course, and a year later she opened her own ballet school in Sandymount, Dublin. Nachstern’s career as a choreographer began in 1999 following the death of her father, which was a devastating blow but also a source of new creative energy. Her choreographic work, which fuses classical ballet with contemporary dance, has found expression through the Night Star Dance Company, which she founded in 2003.

Thomas G. (Tom) Nestor was born in 1936 in Coolcappa, Rathkeale, County Limerick as a farmer’s son and one of ten children. He was educated in St Flannan’s College, Ennis, in 1950-1954, and began his working career in 1955, first with Shannon Sales and Catering Service, and then with an American company in Ennis, where he lived from 1981 to 1990. Nestor later became self-employed and ran a training and consultancy programme for middle managers until his retirement in 2004. He married in 1964 and settled in Birr, County Offaly.

Nestor began his writing career in 1964 with two articles about rural Ireland, which were published in the Manchester Guardian. These were followed by Twilight in Suburbia, written for Donacha O’Dulaing for his radio programme A Munster Journal. The work was however rejected. His published works include three radio plays broadcast by BBC and RTÉ, some thirty short stories published in Scotland, USA and Australia, and three novels: The Keeper of Absalom’s Island (1999), The Blue Pool (2002) and Talking to Kate (2009). From 1964 to 1998 Nestor also contributed to The Limerick Leader with his column My Life and Times.

Thomas Nestor died on 22 December 2023 at the age of 87.

Thomas Noonan was born on 23 December 1891 and lived with his parents Michael and Catherine Noonan together with his four older sisters and two younger brothers at Ballyguy, Barrington’s Bridge, Limerick. Thomas was educated at Murroe National School and later spent three years as an apprentice at McBirney’s Drapery Emporium in Limerick city. He was engaged in clerical work until May 1914, when the prospect of better opportunities, together with the added spur of relatives already there, encouraged his emigration to Sydney, Australia. In September 1914, he enlisted as a private in the Australian Imperial Expeditionary Force. Attached to the 13th Battalion, he spent periods of training in Australia and Egypt. In April 1915, Noonan was wounded in the landings at Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli Peninsula and was transferred to a military hospital in Cairo for treatment. In July, he was returned to front line duty in Gallipoli, where he was killed in action on 9 August 1915. He is buried at the 7th Field Ambulance Cemetery in Gallipoli.

Fearghus Ó Conchúir was born in the Gaeltacht region of Ring in County Waterford. He completed degrees in English and European Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford before training at the London Contemporary Dance School. He was the founder of Corp Deasa Contemporary Dance Company but later developed his career as an independent choreographer and dance artist. He has performed live and in film in Europe, North America, and China. In addition to his own work, Ó Conchúir has danced for other companies and collaborated with numerous dance and other artists. He has also taken an active role in the promotion and development of dance in Ireland and is a board member of Dance Ireland, Project Arts Centre, and Dance Digital. In January 2019, he was appointed Deputy Chair of the Arts Council. A more detailed overview of Ó Conchúir’s career and individual choreographies as well as recordings of his performances can be found at http://www.fearghus.net/.

Edward Donough O’Brien was born on 14 May 1839 as the eldest son of Lucius O’Brien, 13th Baron Inchiquin of Dromoland by his first wife, Mary née Fitzgerald. He was educated at Cambridge and succeeded his father as 14th Baron Inchiquin in 1872. He served as Representative Peer of Ireland between 1873 and 1900 and held the office of Lord-Lieutenant of county Clare between 1879 and 1900. In 1862 he married the Hon. Emily Holmes à Court as his first wife and by her had four children: Geraldine Mary (1863-1951), Lucius William (1864-1929), Murrough (1866-1934) and Edward Donough (1867-1943). His first wife died in 1868, and six years later he married as his second wife the Hon. Ellen Harriet White (1854-1913). By his second wife, he had another ten children: Clare (1875-1950); Moira (1876-1957), Eileen (1877-1867), Maud (1878-1956), Donough (1879-1953); Beatrice (1882-1976), Lilah (1884-1968), Henry Barnaby (1887-1969), Doreen (1888-1960) and Desmond (1895-1915). Edward Donough O’Brien died on 9 April 1900 and was succeeded by his eldest son from his first marriage, Lucius William O’Brien, as 15th Baron Inchiquin.