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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.

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.

Sir Richard Bourke was born in Dublin on 4 May 1777 as the only son of John Bourke and Anne née Ryan. Educated at Westminster School and Oriel College, Oxford, he joined the Grenadier Guards in 1798. A year later, he was wounded in the jaw while in active service in the Netherlands, suffering an injury that later discouraged him from public speaking and political office.

Bourke served in South America and the Peninsular War, where he acted as a liaison with Spanish forces and organized intelligence operations. Promoted to colonel and made a Companion of the Bath in 1814, he retired to his Irish estate, Thornfield, in County Limerick on half-pay but returned to public service due to financial necessity. In 1826, he was appointed lieutenant-governor of the Eastern District of Cape Colony and later became acting governor. Amid economic depression and administrative inefficiency, he reformed trade, secured press freedom, and reorganized government structures. His most notable act was Ordinance 50 (1828), which abolished discriminatory pass laws against free people of colour.

Bourke returned to Thornfield in 1828, but just two years later sought another post abroad. Appointed governor of New South Wales in 1831, he faced a divided society of free settlers and emancipated convicts. He championed liberal reforms, including replacing military with civil juries and consolidating criminal law to curb abuses by magistrates. He promoted religious equality through the Church Acts of 1836, which allocated public funds to major denominations based on population. Bourke also addressed land issues through the Crown Lands Occupation Act (1836), regulating squatter settlements and appointing magistrates to oversee them. He supported assisted migration, helping to bring over 50,000 migrants to the colony. His efforts helped shape the development of the Port Phillip district (later Victoria), where he personally oversaw early urban planning. He resigned in 1837 after a dispute with the Colonial Office over executive authority. His popularity was evident in the public farewell and the erection of his statue in Sydney.

Bourke was knighted (KCB) in 1835, promoted to general in 1851, and declined further high-profile appointments. In collaboration Earl Fitzwilliam, he edited and published the correspondence of his kinsman Edmund Burke (1844). He died of heart failure at his home in Thornfield on 13 August 1855 and was buried in the churchyard at Castleconnell.