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Journalist, author, bibliophile and aviator Michael O’Toole was born in 1938 in Hospital, County Limerick. He was educated by the Presentation Sisters and the De La Salle Brothers and then in the Polytechnic in Central London. He was a postgraduate student of literature at Trinity College, Dublin.

O’Toole worked as a journalist with the Limerick Weekly Echo, Leinster Leader, Limerick Leader and Limerick Chronicle before joining the staff of the Irish Press Group of Newspapers in Dublin. Here he worked as a senior reporter, aviation correspondent (during which time he learned to fly), news editor, features writer and columnist, winning a national award for his writing. He was a long time ‘Dubliner’s Diary’ columnist with the Evening Press. He also worked for the Daily Telegraph, RTÉ and the BBC and was Ireland correspondent for The Tablet for a number of years.

Following the closure of the Irish Press Newspapers, O’Toole was appointed as a columnist in the Evening Herald and also contributed to the ‘Irishman’s Diary’ in the Irish Times. His rich and varied journalistic career is aptly captured in his best-selling book, More Kicks than Pence (Swords: Poolbeg Press Ltd, 1992).

Although he lived in Dublin, O’Toole never forgot his Limerick roots. He had a holiday home in Kilkee in Co. Clare, from where he paid frequent visits to Limerick. He was deeply interested in the Limerick writer, Kate O’Brien (1897-1974), particularly her early career as a playwright and her journalistic work. He championed the resurgence in interest in Kate O’Brien as one of the most important and influential Irish writers of the twentieth century. He wrote and broadcast on her work, wrote the foreword to the 1994 reissue of Presentation Parlour by Poolbeg and was actively involved in the annual Kate O’Brien Weekend in Limerick.

In the early 1990s, O’Toole began the compilation of a Kate O’Brien bibliography and collaborated with her long-term friend Lorna Reynolds, who at the time was working on a biography of Kate O’Brien. Regrettably, both died before the work could be published. O’Toole’s second book, Cleared for Disaster: Ireland’s Most Horrific Air Crashes, was published posthumously by Mercier in 2006.

Michael O’Toole died on 17 April 2000 at the age of sixty-one. At the time of his death, he had been married for over 30 years to journalist and communications consultant Maureen Browne, with whom he had a daughter, Orla and two sons, Feargal and Justin.

Agnes Mary Gaffney was born in Limerick in 1874 to Thomas Gaffney and Agnes Mary née Clune and was educated at Laurel Hill Convent. She was her parents’ only surviving daughter, but had several brothers, many of whom became prominent figures in Irish public life. Among these were James Gaffney (1866-1933), who became a Crown solicitor for county Limerick; Joseph Gaffney (1868-1897), a prominent figure in municipal politics in Limerick and High Sheriff of the city during the year 1896; and Thomas St John Gaffney (1864-1932), who emigrated to America and served as US Consul General at Dresden and Munich in Germany from 1905 to 1915. A strong pro-Irish nationalist, he openly supported Germany during the First World War, which cost him his consular post.

Agnes Mary Gaffney divided her time between Ireland and America as a socialite and featured prominently in the cultural life of both countries. She also took an interest in women’s rights issues through the influence of her sister-in-law Frances Humphreys Gaffney née Smith, who was elected president of the National Council of Women in America in 1899. Agnes settled permanently in Ireland following her marriage to George Robert Ryan in 1900. Her subsequent life history is unknown.

Thomas St. John Gaffney was born in Limerick on 71 May 1864 to Thomas Gaffney and Agnes Mary née Clune. He emigrated to America at the age of 18 and was admitted to the New York Bar in 1889. He became a naturalized American citizen and in 1897 was elected president of the Patriotic League of America. He was appointed Consul General for Dresden in 1905 and that of Munich in 1913, but was forced to resign in 1915 following his open support for Germany during the First World War. In 1916 he was appointed European representative of the American organisation Friends of Irish Freedom. During his time in Germany, Gaffney befriended Roger Casement and provided scathing criticism of Casement's treatment in his memoir Breaking the Silence: England, Ireland, Wilson and the War. Gaffney married Frances Humphreys née Smith, widow of Jay Humphreys in 1894. He died in Summit, New Jersey on 13 January 1945.

Patricia Ryan was born Mary Patricia Kinneen in London in 1923 to William Kinneen and Christiana Kelly. She trained with Nadine Legat in London until her family's move to Dublin in 1939, when she began taking lessons from and performing with Sara Payne. In 1956, having married the artist John Ryan, she became director of the National Ballet School in Dublin, which later evolved into the National Ballet Company. In 1963, the National Ballet Company amalgamated with Joan Denise Moriarty's Irish Theatre Ballet. The venture was short-lived and the company disbanded shorty after its first season. It also marked the end of Patricia Ryan's career in dance as teacher, dancer and choreographer.

Myrtle Lambkin was a ballet dancer who ran a ballet school in Dublin.