Grace O’Malley was born in 1934 as the elder of two children of Charles Vincent O’Malley and Dr Sarah (Judy) née Walsh. Her father was a dentist and ran a successful dental practice in the heart of Limerick city at No. 4 Pery Square, while her mother worked as a doctor and ophthalmologist. Grace was educated at Mount Anville in Dublin and later entered University College Dublin, where her studies for a degree in French and Italian were interrupted by tuberculosis in 1956. Following her recovery, Grace worked in public relations in Shannon. In 1958 she met and married her husband, George Cantillon, and had four children with him. Grace’s lifelong interest in family history culminated in an MA in Art History at University of Limerick in 2004 and the publication of The Round House O’Malleys: The Power of One Woman! in 2014.
Róisín Cahalan was born and raised in Limerick. She trained at the Nolan School of Irish Dance for ten years and later at Scoil Rince Dal gCais under the direction of Anthony Costello. She is a five-time Munster Champion and has placed in the top three at the All-Irelands and British Nationals. Her highest placing at the World Championships was second.
After retiring from competition, Róisín attended the University of Limerick, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in business and a postgraduate degree in computer studies. Upon completion of her academic studies, she became a computer programmer in Dublin. Róisín put her career on hold when she joined the Riverdance Liffey Company in August 1996. She moved to the Lagan Company in January 1998 and returned to the Liffey Company in August 1998.
The title Earl of Ormonde is one of the oldest titles in the peerages in the British Islands. It was first granted in 1328 to John Butler (d. 1338). The 19th Earl of Ormonde, James Wandesford Butler (1777-1838), held the office of Lord Lieutenant of county Kilkenny between 1831 and 1838 and the office of Militia Aide-de-Campt to King William IV from 1832 to 1837. In 1825, he was created 1st Marquess of Ormonde. The last holder of the titles was James Hubert Theobald Charles Butler, 7th Marquess of Ormonde (1899-1997), upon whose death the marquessate became extinct and the earldom became dormant. The family's main seats were Cahir Castle in county Tipperary and Kilkenny Castle in county Kilkenny.
Rosemary Butcher was a British choreographer and dancer known for her minimalist style.
Brian Bunting was born in Belfast in 1946. He attended St Mary’s Christian Brothers Primary School and later the Grammar School in Barrack Street, Belfast. At the age of 7, his parents sent him to the Patricia Mulholland School of Irish Dancing. In 1954, he was part of the junior support cast in Cúchulainn, the first major Irish Ballet produced by Patricia Mulholland, with Norman Maternaghan (Maen) in the lead role. Over the subsequent years Brian also danced in the later Irish Ballets produced by Patricia Mulholland, including The Dream of Angus Óg, The Oul’ Lammas Fair, The Mother of Oisín, The Children of Lir, Phil the Fluter’s Ball, Celtic Anthology, and the Variety Market. In 1958, Brian won the inaugural Junior Northern Ireland Championships (Boys). He was part of the team of Patricia Mulholland dancers that performed at festivals in the Royal Albert Hall, London and Cork (1962), Royan in France (1964), and the Isle of Man and Leeds (1967). Brian joined the Northern Ireland Civil Service in 1963. Owing to work and family commitments, he left the dancing school and stopped Irish dancing in 1968. He retired from the NICS in 2005.
Frances O’Hara was born on 3 January 1949 in Belfast as the eldest daughter of Seamus and Phoebe O’Hara. Her paternal aunt, Ann O’Hara, was a dancer with Patricia Mulholland’s Irish Ballet, and it was through this connection that Frances was initially auditioned and accepted into the Irish dancing classes. The weekly lessons took place in Patricia Mulholland’s house in Nevington Street, a short walk from Frances’ home in north Belfast. Her brothers and sisters all followed her to Patricia Mulholland’s classes, but it was Frances who had the grace and enthusiasm to continue dancing through her teens and early twenties. She became part of the Irish Ballet and danced in a range of roles in ballets such as The Children of Lir, Phil the Fluter’s Ball and Cúchulainn. In 1967, she travelled with the company to the Isle of Man to participate in the Viking Festival. She made lifelong friendships through Irish dancing, and also maintained a close relationship with Patricia Mulholland. It was Frances and her friend and fellow dancer Sheelagh Gilligan who organised a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Irish Ballet in 1976.
In 1987, Frances married Robert Clark Buchanan and emigrated to the Cayman Islands, where she worked as an attorney in a private law practice. She later worked in Geneva, Switzerland for the philanthropic Oak Foundation. She and her husband retired to Ireland in 2013 to the village of Castlerock near Coleraine, where she became an active committee member of the Castlerock Community Association. She died in Coleraine on 27 May 2020.
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.