Dr. Catherine Foley is a dancer and musician. Her undergraduate degree is in music from Cork (NUI) and she holds a doctorate in ethnochoreology (Irish traditional step dance) from London. She worked as a collector of Irish traditional music, song and dance for Muckross House, Killarney, Co. Kerry, and has lectured, performed, published, and given workshops internationally. She designed the MA Ethnochoreology and the MA Irish Traditional Dance Performance courses at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, and acted as director of both courses until her retirement in 2019. Catherine was instrumental in the establishment and development of the National Dance Archive of Ireland and served as its first director. She is also founder and Chair Emerita of Dance Research Forum Ireland.
Ann Gallagher, the daughter of Frank and Cecilia Gallagher, was born in Dublin. She attended the Abbey School of Ballet under Muriel Kelly’s direction as a child, and it was at the Abbey School that her lifelong interest in ballet started. She was interested in and exposed to all aspects of Dublin’s cultural life from an early age, and began visiting ballets and collecting programmes, which form the core of this collection.
Gerard Patrick Gallivan was born in Limerick on 29 July 1920 and grew up on Henry Street. A contemporary of Frank McCourt, Gallivan’s recollections of his home city differed considerably from those described in Angela’s Ashes, although the two men lived in very similar spheres. Gallivan was educated at Crescent College and graduated in 1939. He began his working career in England, where he emigrated in 1940. Here he also met his wife, whom he married in 1945. A year later, they returned to Ireland and settled in Limerick, where Gallivan established a career in the airline industry. In 1952, he was transferred to Dublin, where he was to live for the rest of his life.
Gallivan’s writing career commenced at the age of 18, when he wrote his first novel, The Hawk, but failed to get it published. He later found his feet as a playwright and over his long career wrote more than 40 plays, many of which were produced at the Gate Theatre, Abbey Theatre, Elbana Theatre and Olympia Theatre in Dublin, and the Lyric Theatre in Belfast. He also did a lot of journeyman work, contributing several episodes to the popular radio series Harbour Hotel and The Kennedys of Castleross, and for the television drama Kilmore House. Many of his stage scripts, such as Parnell, The Final Mission and The Lamb and the Fox, were also produced as radio plays.
Gerard Gallivan's works focus predominantly on Irish political history (particularly the foundation of the Irish State) and major Irish and English political and social figures such as Bernard Shaw, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Maude Gonne, W. B. Yeats, Noel Chamberlain, Eamonn De Valera, Michael Collins and Cardinal Newman. His published plays include Decision at Easter (1960); And a Yellow Singing Bird (1963); Mourn the Ivy Leaf (1965); Dev (1978); Watershed (1981), Lovesong (1984), and three volumes of Selected Plays (1999-2008). Among his best-known stage plays is The Stepping Stone, which was originally performed in 1963 and enjoyed a popular revival in Cork in 1997. Gallivan continued to write until the last months of his life. His later works included The Indomitable Lamb (1997), The Prudent Paramour (1997) and The Rusted Dagger (1998), all of which were broadcast as radio plays. His other late works included a family history The Gallivans of Limerick (1995), and a commissioned account of his working life, My Time in Irish Travel, published posthumously in 2004 as Ireland Enters the Air Age. He died on Christmas Day 2003.
Deirdre Grant was born in Wexford and was first introduced to contemporary dance in that town in 1984, when she joined the Barefoot Youth Dance Company. She later gained a BA in Dance with Education from Middlesex University, London, undertook post-graduate training in Community and Youth Dance, and has recently trained with Joan Davis (Certificate of Somatic Studies). In 1999, she co-founded Myriad Dance with Brid Malone, and remains the company’s artistic director. Grant is the author of Are We Dancing Yet, published by Wexford County Council in December 2011.
Myriad Dance successfully promoted dance awareness, participation, and appreciation regionally through various dance performance-based initiatives (mainly site specific works) and development initiatives, including the Sonraigh Youth Dance Festival and the Pulse Youth Dance Programme (2001-2008) in partnership with Wexford County Council. The latter was expanded in 2009 and continued to operate under the name Education and Community Programme @ Myriad as the largest youth dance partnership with a local authority in Ireland. In July 2009, Myriad Dance moved into the newly built Wexford Opera House, in which they were one of two resident dance companies. Over the years, the dance company’s intense focus in youth and education left it at odds with its original role as a production company. As a consequence, the dance company was wound down in 2015.
Limerick Civic Trust was founded in 1982 to promote and preserve all aspects of Limerick’s culture, including history, architecture and the environment. Formally inaugurated on 17 February 1983, it is an independent, non-profit society and a registered charity. Working in conjunction with local authorities, state agencies, Limerick’s commercial and professional bodies and other interested parties, it initiates and undertakes conservation and preservation projects such as the restoration of derelict building, supports environmental community projects such as river walks, community gardens and graveyard maintenance, publishes books, maps and pamphlets and organises walking tours and courses with a view to promoting civic pride and creating a better understanding of heritage.
The Condensed Milk Company of Ireland, commonly known as Cleeve's, was a major Irish food processor founded in Limerick in 1883 by the Canadian entrepreneur Sir Thomas Cleeve (1844-1908). Its products included condensed milk, creamery butter and the famous Cleeve's Toffee and it was an important supplier to the British Forces during the First World War. The collapse in the price of milk after the war led to the company's liquidation in 1923. In 1927, it became part of the new semi-state body, the Dairy Disposal Company, and continued to operate under state control until 1974, when the Dairy Disposal Company was broken up. The bulk of what remained of the Condensed Milk Company was sold to Golden Vale, now a subsidiary of the Kerry Group.
The Legion of Mary is an international association of lay members of the Roman Catholic Church founded by Frank Duff on 7 September 1921 in Dublin. Its members are engaged in spiritual works of mercy, such as visiting the sick and the lonely; distributing Catholic literature; evangelising; and fostering family prayer.
The basic unit of the Legion is the praesidium, normally based in a parish. Members of a praesidia meet once a week, when they are allocated a weekly apostolic task, usually undertaken in pairs. Members undergo a probationary period, after which they are called to make the Legionary Promise. Perhaps the best-known member of the Legion of Mary is the Venerable Edel Quinn (1907-1944), who served as Legion Envoy to East Africa in the 1930s and 1940s.
Gerald Doyle was born in Saggart, county Dublin on 17 September 1896 as the eldest of seven children born to Thomas Doyle and Catherine née Byrne. He followed his father into trade as a plasterer. He joined the Volunteer Movement in 1915, and a year later fought in the 1916 Rising in B Company, 4th Battalion at South Dublin Union. He was captured, court-martialled and sentenced to death, but owing to his age and other mitigating circumstances his sentence was commuted to three years of penal servitude in Portland Jail in Dorset. In December 1916, he was among the 123 Irish prisoners transferred to Lewes Prison. He was released on 18 June 1917 following a general amnesty of Irish Republicans involved in the 1916 Rebellion. In 1956, he gave a witness statement to the Bureau of Military History of the events in 1916 and beyond. He died in Dublin on 11 May 1979.