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Joan Denise Moriarty was a seminal character in the development of ballet in Ireland, both at amateur and professional levels. Little is known of her early life, including her date and place of birth. She was brought up in England and studied ballet in her youth with Marie Rambert. In 1933 her family returned to their native Mallow, where a year later Moriarty set up her first school of dance. In 1940, she established the Moriarty School of Dancing in Cork. She was also the founder of Cork Ballet Company (1947-1993) and Irish Theatre Ballet (1959-1964), which in 1963 merged with Patricia Ryan's National Ballet Company to form the short-lived National Ballet (1963-1964). The third ballet company associated with Moriarty was the Irish Ballet Company, later renamed Irish National Ballet, founded by the government in 1973 and financed by the Arts Council until 1989, when the funding was withdrawn and the company was forced to disband.
Moriarty was also a noted choreographer and drew inspiration from traditional Irish dance, a dance form in which she also excelled. Some of her best known ballets include Puck Fair (1948), The Children of Lír (1950), Papillons (1952), West Cork Ballad (1961), Devil to Pay (1962), Lugh of the Golden Arm (1977) and, perhaps most famously, The Playboy of the Western World (1978).
Joan Denise Moriarty continued her work with the Cork Ballet Company until the end of her life. She died in Dublin on 24 January 1992.