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Francis Thomas Aiken, also known as Frank Aiken, was an Irish revolutionary, chief of staff of the Anti-Treaty IRA after the Civil War and TD for Louth from 1923 to 1973. A full biography of Frank Aiken can be found in the Dictionary of Irish Biography (https://www.dib.ie/biography/aiken-francis-thomas-frank-a0070).

Anne was the second daughter of the Duke of York, afterwards King James II of England and VII of Scotland. She succeeded to the throne in 1702 following the death of her brother-in-law William III of Orange, joint monarch with his wife Mary, Anne’s elder sister, following the deposition of King James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Anne’s reign was short and relatively peaceful, although it did witness a further tightening of the Penal Laws against the Roman Catholic population in Ireland.

Francis Arthur was the only surviving son of Patrick Arthur, a prominent wine and timber merchant in Limerick city and developer of the new suburb, Newtown Pery. Patrick also built Arthur’s Quay on the Shannon and laid out a number of streets which he named after members of his own family. Francis was in partnership with his father on these projects from about the mid-1770s. By the early 1790s, Francis Arthur was one of the leading Catholics of Limerick City and doing successful business not only in Limerick but also in the neighbouring counties, most notably Cork and Kerry.

In 1796, Francis Arthur raised and trained a corps of yeomanry artillery at his own expense as protections against a feared French invasion. In May 1798 he was accused of treason for concealing weapons and advancing money to Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the leader of the United Irishmen. At his trial, which took place a month later, Francis was refused counsel and most of his witnesses were excluded from the court. He was sentenced to transportation for life to Botany Bay and fined £5,000. After a petition by his wife to the Lord Lieutenant, Francis was liberated on condition that he leave Ireland. He moved to England but retained his business interests in Limerick and made sporadic visits to the city. He died on 17 June 1824 in Dunkirk, France, where he had been living for some years prior to his death.

Francis Arthur married Ellen née Sexton in 1779 and by her had a son, Patrick Edmond (1783-1814), who qualified as a barrister and married Susanna Grainger in 1812; and at least four daughters: Catherine (1780-1867) who became a nun; Alicia (1785-1859), who married Jeremiah Scully in 1809; Margaret (b. 1789) who married Daniel Leahy in 1818; and Ellen (1793-1842), who became a nun. Some records identify a fifth daughter, Maria, who married Patrick Greene in 1806, while other records state that Patrick Greene was Margaret Arthur’s first husband.

Robert Rennie Ballingal was born on 9 June 1867 at Killarrow, Argyllshire in Scotland. In 1894, he was appointed land agent to the 4th Earl of Dunraven at Adare Manor, county Limerick, which role he retained for 27 years until his retirement in 1921. One of his duties included the supervision of the works at the tobacco factory established in Adare by the 4th Earl of Dunraven in 1908. A keen sportsman, Ballingal was secretary of the Adare Manor Golf Club and an active member of the Limerick Lawn Tennis Club and the Irish Coursing Club. He was also co-director of Killoran Slate Quarries in county Tipperary and a board member of the Limerick Fishery Conservators. Following his retirement he returned to Argyllshire, where he died on 27 July 1928.

Winifred Frances Barrington was born in London on 5 July 1897 as the eldest child and only daughter of Sir Charles Burton Barrington, 5th Baronet, of Glenstal Castle, county Limerick and Mary Rose née Bacon. She served as a nurse during the First World War and was a universal favourite with those who knew her. She struck up a friendship with District Inspector (Major) Henry Biggs, one of the most notorious and hated Black-and-Tan officers. On 14 May 1921, the couple were travelling in a car in Coolboreen, county Tipperary when their vehicle was ambushed by the IRA and Winifred was mistakenly shot and mortally wounded. She died later the same day at home, while Biggs died at the site of the ambush.

Dr Olive Beecher is a professional dancer and dance academic. She trained at the Nikolais/ Louis Dance School in New York under Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis and studied improvisation and somatics under Sara Pearson. On returning to Ireland, Beecher worked as a dance lecturer at Thomond College, University of Limerick and became a founder member of Daghdha Dance Company under the artistic direction of Mary Nunan. Beecher devised, choreographed, and performed contemporary dance works for and with the Company for four years between 1988 and 1992.

Beecher left Daghdha Dance Company to develop her own work and continued to study under internationally renowned teachers including Jill Clarke, Laurie Booth, Motion House, teachers from Hawkins, and Merdith Monk Company. Olive performed in New York, the UK, and in theatres throughout Ireland. She also became a dance academic, completing an MA in Ethnochoreology in 1998 and a PhD in therapeutic applications of modern dance in 2005 at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick.

Beecher is first and foremost a dance artist. Between 1987 and 2016 she has created more than 25 original dance/performance works and continues to practice as an artist. Her work is influenced by the experimental movement of the 1960s and 1970s in Europe and America. She is also interested in German expressionism, eastern and post-modern approaches to movement and performance, and pedestrian movement. Most of her creative ideas stem from her own life experiences.

Beecher’s academic interests include topics such as improvisation; creativity, theory, and practice; phenomenology; somatics and fundamentals of contemporary dance movement; arts, health, and well-being; integrated dance and special education; dance education and Rudolf Laban; ritual; and post-modernism. She has been a regular contributor to the Irish World Academy Seminar Series from 1999 to 2015 and has worked as a dance tutor at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick since 2006. She also delivers the dance education and world dance modules each year at University College Cork, which she wrote for their Physical Education and Sports Science degree programme in 2007. She also works in special education. The integration of theory and practice is a key feature of her teaching and lecturing style.

David Bolger is an Irish dancer, choreographer and founder of the dance company CoisCéim.

Terence Aloysious 'Terry' Bowler was born in London on 21 June 1928. His mother was from Dublin and his father from Dingle, Co. Kerry. The family was very musical and had their own Irish band, which during the war played in all the Irish Halls in London. Terry became interested in Irish dancing at the age of 11, when he began to take lessons from Maura Sheehan. In the early 1940s he joined Charlie Smith’s School of Irish Dancing in London and became one of its best dancers, coming second in the All England Championships in the late 1940s. He was also interested in teaching and in 1948 opened his first class in St. Monica’s Hall in Hoxton, East London.

Nancy Brown was born in Mallow on 6 November 1932, but grew up in Cork city. At the age of 4, she joined Joan Denise Moriarty’s ballet classes in Mallow but within a few months abandoned ballet and took up Irish dancing. Between the ages of 4 and 8 she was taught by Kevin O’Connell, Peggy McTaggart and finally by Cormac O’Keeffe, with whom she remained until the age of 18. She was the winner of the Junior Champion¬ships two years in succession at Feis Matiu. She also won the Munster championship in the 1940s and came second in the Thomond Belt in Limerick in 1949. In 1952, she moved to London for treatment for a medical condition, While waiting for corrective surgery, she joined Charlie Smith’s School of Irish Dancing in London, initially as a dancer and soon after as a teacher.

Nancy Brown met Terry Bowler in Chelsea at an Irish dancing event in 1952, and the couple married in 1956. They began teaching together in the Bowler School of Dancing in London in 1953, and in that same year were invited to do a tour in Lower Austria. In 1967, Terry and Nancy became the first married couple ever to achieve the A.D.C.R.G. examination at the same time. They both taught Irish dancing for the Inner London Education Authority from 1955 to 1990, and other classes until 1995. For many years, they also taught Irish dancing to the pupils of the Royal Ballet School. As teachers, the couple’s roles were very clear cut, Terry creating choreographies and Nancy polishing the acts. Their dance teams won numerous competitions, including the Figure Dance World Championships in the 1970s. In addition to his love of dancing, Terry Bowler was an accomplished graphic artist and columnist.

Adrienne Brown was born in Dublin and began her dance education with ballet classes. She later developed an interest in contemporary dance and spent three years studying at London Contemporary Dance School. Between 1991 and 1998, she attended the Martha Graham Center of Dance in New York, where she gained first place in her teacher-training certificate course. She was co-founder with Anne Lise Schmitt of New Balance Dance Company in 1987, and a founding member of Dance Ireland, acting as its chair from 2008 to 2013. Adrienne taught movement to actors at the Gaiety School of Acting for twenty years, developing a programme suited to the needs of the training actor. Since 1994, she has been teaching technique and choreography at Inchicore College of Further Education.

As a choreographer, Adrienne has remained true to dance as a specific form of expression emerging from the mastery of the human body in motion. For her creative work, Adrienne draws on movement, narrative, text, musicality, and compositional elements. She has collaborated with several composers, including Paul Hayes, JJ Vernon, Michael Seaver, Mel Mercier, Trevor Knight, and Siobhan Cleary, and has taken inspiration from the writings of Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, Paula Meehan, Charlotte Mew, and Beth Ann Fennelly. Her repertoire, which has been staged in Ireland, England, and France, comprises over 40 choreographies, including 'Fin de Siecle' (1989), 'Of No Dreams Remember' (1989), 'Six Women in Search of a Dance' (1990), 'The Wounds of Art' (1990), 'Two Into One Won’t Go' (1991), 'Cry' (1992), 'For Delia' (1993), 'The Well' (1994), 'The Sin Eater' (1995), 'Meeting Points & Translations' (1995), 'Four Points of a Circle' (1995), 'Sculptura' (1996), 'This Happened' (1996), 'Mapping a Route Home' (1996), 'Love is a Beautiful Bondage, Too' (1997), 'You Who Have Never Arrived' (2001), 'Voices' (2002), 'Who Moves You' (2004), 'A Study of Bach’s Musical Offering (I)' (2005), 'A Study of Bach’s Musical Offering (II)' (2006), 'Lumen' (2010), 'One' (2011), 'Arctic Birds’ Song' (2012), and 'Exodus: A New Earth' (2013).

In 1997, Adrienne was the first Irish choreographer to be invited to participate in the Righting Dance project at the Institute of Choreography and Dance, Cork. This was a mentored research project, which took place over three years under Adrienne’s chosen mentor, the international choreographer Kim Brandstrup of Arc Dance. This extensive creative process gave rise to a full-length dance work, 'Colmcille', which premiered in 2000 and toured Ireland in 2001.

Between 2002 and 2006, Adrienne completed a BA degree in University College Dublin, graduating with honours in Music and English, and an honours MA in American Studies. Following her MA thesis in 2006, she was awarded an Ad Astra Research Scholarship from UCD to undertake a four-year PhD in Musicology and Dance, leading to the completion of a doctoral dissertation, 'Meaning Indicators in Twentieth-Century Music and Dance', in 2012.