Michael Curtin was born in Limerick in 1942 and educated at the Sexton Street Christian Brothers’ school. In the 1960s, having spent five years working in a cement plant, he emigrated to London to try his hand as a writer. Finding no success, he returned to Limerick, where the broadcaster David Hanly encouraged him to continue writing. Several of Curtin’s short stories were subsequently published in the New Irish Writing column in the Irish Press and one of them took first prize at Listowel Writers’ Week in 1972. His first novel, The Self-Made Men, a partly autobiographical account of immigrant life in England, was published in 1980 by André Deutsch. Five further novels followed: The Replay (1981), The League Against Christmas (1989), The Plastic Tomato Cutter (1991), The Cove Shivering Club (1996), and Sing! (2001). Many of Curtin’s stories are set in his native city of Limerick and are characterised by a darkly comic tone, which became Curtin’s trademark. Michael Curtin died in his native city in April 2016.
Patricia Crosbie was born in Cork in 1958 and began her early dance training in Joan Denise Moriarty’s school of dance. She danced with Cork Ballet Company, founded by Moriarty in 1947; and in the Irish Ballet Company, founded by Moriarty in 1973 and renamed Irish National Ballet in 1983. Her many roles included Odette/ Odile in Swan Lake; Sugar Plum Fairy/ Snow Queen in The Nutcracker, and Widow Quin in The Playboy of the Western World. She is ballet mistress with Cork City Ballet.
Croí Glan Integrated Dance Company was founded in December 2006 by Rhona Coughlan and Tara Brandel. Based in Ballydehob, county Cork, this professional contemporary dance company includes both disabled and non-disabled dancers and highlights the artistic value of creating performance with diverse bodies.
The Cratloe and Meelick Dispensary was formed on 6 January 1835 to provide healthcare for the underprivileged in East Clare within the Limerick poor-law union. The Dispensary’s work was supported partly through private subscriptions and partly through public funding. Surgeon Thomas Kane of Cecil Street, Limerick acted as the medical attendant. Initially, treatment was provided free of charge to patients in receipt of vouchers distributed by subscribers. However, the voucher system was vulnerable to abuse and from 1840 onwards a small fee was charged from all except the most destitute. The Dispensary remained active throughout the famine years, but by 1850 struggled to find funding. Its subsequent fate is unknown.
Former member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and one of the kidnappers of the industrialist Tiede Herrema in Limerick in 1975.
Cork City Ballet is one of only two professional ballet companies in Ireland. It was formed in 1991 by Alan Foley to address the void left by the closure of the Cork-based Irish National Ballet in 1989 due to a lack of funding. Cork City Ballet presented its first public performance at the Everyman Palace Theatre on 27 March 1992 and continues to operate under the artistic directorship of Alan Foley, who also acted as the ballet’s principal male dancer until his retirement in that capacity in 2007.
An amateur ballet company founded by Joan Denise Moriarty in 1947.
Charles James Coote was born on 19 August 1837 as the second of the five children Lieutenant-Colonel Charles James Coote of Mount Coote, county Limerick and Alice née Stuart. His elder brother having died in infancy, Charles succeeded to the Mount Coote estate in 1853, when his father was killed in action in the Second Anglo-Burmese War. Charles James Coote gained the rank of Captain in the 18th Royal Irish Regiment. He married Emily Pakenham in 1867 and died without issue on 11 March 1925.