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Simon Dalby was educated at Trinity College, Dublin (BA) and the University of Victoria, Canada (MA) and holds a PhD from Simon Fraser University of British Columbia, Canada. He was Professor of Geography, Environmental Studies and Political Economy at Carleton University in Ottawa until 2012, when he joined Wilfrid Laurier University’s Balsillie School of International Affairs as professor of Geography and Environmental Studies. His research interests include climate change, environmental security and geopolitics, on which topics he has published extensively.

Rosemary Dalton was born Rosemary Bartram in Dublin. She started ballet classes at the Abbey School of Ballet, co-founded by W. B. Yeats and Ninette de Valois in 1927. She also studied piano at the Municipal School of Music (now College of Music) under Josephine Curran and acted as accompanist to the school’s orchestra under Michael McNamara.

In 1953, on a trip to enjoy a week of ballet performances in London, Rosemary became acquainted with author and bookseller Cyril Beaumont and his wife. Their friendship was to last until Cyril Beaumont’s death in 1976.

Rosemary became involved with the National Ballet School, founded by Cecil ffrench Salkeld in 1954, both as a council member and as a student, taking classes with the school’s artistic director, Madame Valentina Dutko. Encouraged by Dutko, Rosemary started an evening class for adults who had danced ballet as children and wished to take it up again as a hobby. When Valentina Dutko moved to the United States with her diplomat husband, the ballet school was left in Rosemary’s care. In need of a teacher of the Russian method of Ballet which the school had adopted, Rosemary wrote to Nadine Nicolaeva-Legat and on her recommendation hired Legat’s former student, Patricia Ryan, as a teacher.

Following her marriage, Rosemary Dalton moved from Dublin to Cork and as a consequence of family commitments gave up an active involvement in ballet in 1963 for a number of years. In the late 1980s, she befriended Eric Gibson and Mary Gibson-Madden and became involved in the running of Ballet Theatre Ireland founded by the couple in 1992. Her involvement in the school was to lead to a friendship with Dame Ninette de Valois and her secretary Helen Quinnell who, along with Sir Peter Wright, joined forces in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to encourage the Arts Council to support the dance company.

In 1980, Cork Vocational Education Committee persuaded Rosemary to start fitness classes for women. She taught yoga in adult education classes and community schools in Cork for 30 years, retiring in 2011.

For a full biography of Edward ('Ned') Daly, please refer to the Dictionary of Irish Biography, https://www.dib.ie/biography/daly-edward-a2376.

John Daly was born in Limerick City on 18 October 1845 as the son of a labourer. At the age of 18, he became a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), founded in 1858 to crusade for the establishment of an independent Irish Republic. Its sister organisation in the United States was known as the Fenian Brotherhood. Fenianism was particularly strong in Limerick, where John Daly emerged as one of the leaders of an ill-prepared Fenian Rising in 1867. When the attack was repelled, Daly was forced to flee the country. After a period of exile in America, he returned home to reinvigorate the IRB and to promote its aims among the general public. In 1883, John Daly was arrested for his involvement in the so-called Dynamite Campaign, a transatlantic conspiracy directed by Clan na Gael, the rebranded Fenian Brotherhood in America. He was sentenced to penal servitude in Chatham and was later moved to Portland Prison in Dorset. Here he met and befriended a fellow-Fenian, Thomas Clarke, who was serving a sentence for his involvement in a failed attempt to blow up London Bridge as part of the Fenian Dynamite Campaign.

John Daly was released from prison on health grounds in 1896. His brother Edward having died in 1890, Daly was now responsible for the support of his widow and ten children, who included Margaret (Madge) Daly and Edward (Ned) Daly. After a year of fundraising in America for Clan na Gael, he returned to Limerick and established a bakery in May 1898 at 26 William Street, where several of his nieces worked. John Daly became a figurehead for Limerick nationalist politics and, in spite of efforts to disqualify him, won a seat on the City Council. He was elected Mayor of Limerick City on three occasions (1899-1901) and became known as the Fenian Mayor. The spectacular elevation to civic office of a convicted felon was indicative of the appeal of the republican message to the artisans and labourers of the city.

John Daly died on 30 June 1916, devastated by the loss of his nephew Ned Daly and many close friends in the Easter Rising and its aftermath. His influence and legacy was marked by the volume of good wishes the Daly family received from organisations and individuals alike. His and his Fenian comrades’ deaths in 1916 marked the beginning of a more organised and effective military campaign against British rule in Ireland.

Margaret ('Madge') Daly was born on 4 February 1877 as the second of the ten children of Edward Daly and Catherine O'Mara. Her siblings included Kathleen Daly, Mayor of Dublin and wife of the Irish revolutionary Thomas Clarke; and Edward ('Ned') Daly, commandant of Dublin's 1st battalion of the Irish Volunteers during the Easter Rising and the youngest of the leaders executed in its aftermath. Margaret's father died in 1890, and six years later his brother, John Daly, assumed responsibility for the support of his widow and children. In May 1898 he established a bakery in Limerick city at 26 William Street, where several of his nieces worked.

When an auxiliary branch of the women’s nationalist organisation Cuman na mBan was established in Limerick on 5 June 1914, Margaret and her sisters became heavily involved in its activities. She was also actively involved in the planning of the Easter Rising. When her uncle died in 1916, Margaret inherited his bakery business and revealed herself to be an astute businesswoman. From the proceeds of the bakery she helped to support not only her sisters and their families but also the newly formed Volunteers. Her strong republican views subjected Margaret to repeated harassment by the military and the police, including the looting and burning of the bakery and the stopping of the bread van during delivery because of Gaelic lettering displayed on its side. Each time, she withstood the ordeal and successfully fought the authorities for compensation.

In the 1940s, Margaret relocated from Limerick to Dublin, where she died unmarried on 21 January 1969.

Joan Davis née Citron was born in Dublin in 1945. She studied tap, folk, and ballroom dancing with Evelyn Burchill as a child, and rediscovered her love of dance at the age of 29, when she began taking classes with the American modern dance pioneer Terez Nelson. Davis made her public debut as a contemporary dancer in 1975, when Nelson staged a small performance at St Mark’s Church in Dublin. Davis and Nelson later taught together, but their partnership failed to last, and Davis sought further training at the London School of Contemporary Dance, commuting between Dublin and London on a fortnightly basis to participate in intensive training sessions.

In April 1977, Davis co-founded the Dublin Contemporary Dance Studio with Karen Callaghan. The school was located at premises on Harold’s Cross, Dublin and opened its doors in September 1977. It provided an opportunity for dancers to work with guest teachers from abroad, and it was here that many of Ireland’s prominent dance personalities received their first grounding in contemporary dance. In March 1979, Davis and Callaghan established the Dublin Contemporary Dance Theatre under the patronage of Marsha Paludan and Niall Montgomery. The company toured professionally in Ireland and abroad and received financial support from the Arts Council. Its core members were Joan Davis, Robert Connor, Loretta Yurick, and Mary Nunan, but other dancers such as Ruth Way, Judy Cole, Paul Johnson, and Tony Pinder also performed in the company at different times. The dance company and school played a significant role in establishing and shaping contemporary dance in Ireland, and Davis is acknowledged as one of the pioneers in this field.

The Dublin Contemporary Dance Company folded suddenly in February 1989, when the Arts Council announced the withdrawal of its financial support. This gave Davis an opportunity to pursue her interest in movement as a therapeutic tool and to seek training in various somatic forms such as Authentic Movement and Body-Mind Centering. Throughout the 1990s, Davis worked as a movement therapist, advertising this work as The Moving Experience. She also explored the links between therapeutic practices and the arts, terming it The Theatre of the Unconscious. As part of this exploration, she organised outdoor retreats or “tribals” during which participants lived outdoors and created art and movement in nature. In 1999, Davis received funding from the Arts Council to explore therapeutic movement forms more fully in a shared dance context. The project culminated in a performance, Through Fluid Eyes, on Greystones Beach in County Wicklow in August of that year. From these explorations emerged the Maya Lila training method for professional dancers, which harnesses somatic training practices as a starting point for an exploration of the creative process and encourages coordination between body and mind.

Éamonn Proinsias de hÓir was born Edward Francis Dore as one of three children and the only son of Edward Thomas Dore and Nora Daly. A devoted nationalist, he later adopted the Irish spelling of his name. Born in 1921, he studied at University College, Dublin and gained an MA degree in Modern Irish in 1941. While at UCD, he was active in An Cumann Gaelach and in the Language Movement. After some further postgraduate work he joined the translation department of the Dáil.

In 1957, de hÓir was appointed director of the office of the Ordnance Survey. During his tenure, he upgraded and expanded the work of the Placenames Commission and became the country’s leading authority on place names. In 1964, he founded the Placenames Association (An Cumann Logaimneacha) to inform the public of the Commisson’s work and established the Association’s journal, Dinnseanchas, which he continued to edit until his death. De hÓir gave several lectures annually, wrote a number of articles on Irish language subjects and in 1963 published a book in Irish on the lives and work of Eugene O’Curry and John O’Donovan, his nineteenth-century predecessors in the Placenames Office. De hÓir also had a deep interest in archaeology and was a long-standing member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries. He died suddenly on 20 December 1975 at Meath Hospital, Dublin, aged 54.

General Sir Henry de Beauvoir De Lisle was a British Army Officer. He served in the First World War as commander of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, then as General Officer Commanding (GOC) 1st Cavalry Division and as GOC 29th Division during the Gallipoli Campaign.

Ernest de Regge was a major influence in the development of church music in Ennis and the diocese of Killaloe. He was an accomplished musician, organist and composer, and much of his music was performed by the Ennis Cathedral choir and broadcast on RTÉ. He was also instrumental in setting up the annual Church Music Festival, which was held in Ennis in the 1930s. Under the auspices of An tOireachtas, he arranged Irish melodies for school choirs and received many national and international awards for his work.

Ernest de Regge was born on 15 January 1901 in Overmere, Flanders, Belgium, where his father was an elementary school teacher and organist. Ernest’s musical talent was recognised at a young age and while still in elementary school he and his brother were given the opportunity of private classes under Jules De Groot, organist at the cathedral in Ghent. His secondary school in Sint Niklaas prepared him not only for teaching but also for the position of church organist. He then enrolled in the prestigious conservatory, the Lemmens Institute in Malines (currently incorporated into the University of Louvain), where he studied composition, organ and Gregorian music. In 1922, he received the degree of Licentiate in Music claiming first place in composition, while his classmate, the world famous Flor Peeters, took the prize for organ.

From 1900, the Lemmens Music Conservatory in Malines had sent its organists and musicians to Ireland. Ireland had musical people and good, well-maintained organs but lacked trained organists and musicians who could play them to the highest standard. There had been much sympathy in Ireland for Belgians suffering during the First World War, while the struggle for Irish independence had created much interest and sympathy on the continent. In 1923, Bishop Fogarty appointed Ernest de Regge music professor at St. Flannan’s College and organist-choirmaster in the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul. The bishop’s aim was to implement the instruction of Pope Pius X to simplify choir music. In St. Flannan’s (a junior seminary), de Regge would be instructing future clergy of the diocese of Killaloe in musical literacy and giving them a firm grounding in Gregorian Chant.

In the 1920s and 1930s, de Regge returned frequently to Belgium to continue his studies under the distinguished teacher of harmony and orchestration, Paul Gilson of Liege (recipient of the prestigious Prix de Rome award). They were collaborating in 1942 on de Regge’s Piano Concerto when Paul Gilson died; it would appear that the work was never published. He also continued his studies in composition with Lodewijk Mortelmans, director of the Antwerp Music Conservatory.

The Ennis Cathedral choir had been associated with liturgy in the cathedral for over one hundred years, beginning in 1859 with another Belgian, Charles Louis ‘Mons’ Nono. In the cathedral, de Regge created a showpiece choir, which was the envy of other dioceses. The choir, which often had over a hundred members, was a focal point for the young people of Ennis. The highlights of the church calendar were the midnight mass and high mass at Christmas, Easter and St Patrick’s Day. Talented local singers received extensive training and in particular the voices of Eva Meehan (alto), Amby Costello (soprano), John Murphy and Aiden Tuttle (tenor), Stephen Touhy and George Meehan (bass) and Liam Walker (alto) were highlights of this era. Broadcasts on Radio Éireann included Sacred Concerts in 1930, 1933, 1935, 1946 (Diamond Jubilee of Bishop Fogarty), and 1947 (Mass in honour of Blessed Oliver Plunket), in addition to concerts such as the An Tostal in 1953.

In the early 1930s, the new Irish Republic was very anxious to acquire and publish new Irish music through the state publishing company, An Gum. De Regge and Micheál Ó Siochfhradha (a primary school inspector based in Ennis, a skilled violinist and a John McCormack Medal-winning tenor) took up that task. These two, together with Father Joseph Rogers, Irish professor at St Flannan’s and Sister Mary Albeus of the Sisters of Mercy worked for several years adapting old Irish airs for school choirs. O’Siochfhradha and de Regge also published a textbook The Rudiments of Music (1953) in both Irish and English on the teaching of music as a subject for secondary schools.

De Regge composed almost two hundred works for choirs of mixed voices, songs based upon English and Irish texts, masses, motets, piano and organ pieces. His profile grew as he won national competitions. He received the Composers Competition Milligan Fox medals in 1939, 1942 and 1946; Dr Annie Patterson Medals in 1943 and 1953 for composition; and first prizes in An tOireachtas Ceol in 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947 and 1956. It was, however, impossible to support his growing family as a music teacher and organist, and after entrepreneurial ventures into farming (chickens) and importing cars (Borgward and Lloyd), he opened a jewellery shop in O’Connell Street, Ennis and a music shop in Limerick. He combined his passion for collecting paintings and antiques with trips to the Dublin auction houses, where he bought pianos for refurbishing and resale.

The night before the fateful furniture auction at the historic Carmody’s Hotel in Ennis, de Regge quipped to his friend and choir manager Paddy Gill that he would buy de Valera’s bed for him (Paddy was not a Dev supporter). Next day, on 15 January, 1958, the floor of the auction room collapsed killing Ernest de Regge and seven others and injuring fourteen. The tragedy cast a shadow over the town for many months and years to come.

Ernest de Regge is remembered for his great musical talent, his continued and infectious good humour, his zeal and above all his kindness. He was a second father to his students and young choir members and always nurtured their talents; money was never a barrier to someone who had talent. He had special time for those who had to emigrate, perhaps remembering his own times in the twenties, and often took time to write to them to help them through those first lonely weeks, usually in England. Ernest de Regge had become an adopted son of Ennis, and as such had been taken to the town’s heart. He had left his mark on the musical and social life of so many in County Clare and farther afield.