Great Paddies

Von

The BBC has that top 100 list of Brits here. There's a few paddies on it naturally enough. But anyway, who are the greatest dead, fictional or living Irish people?

sceptre

Ah now there's an interesting question (surprised by the Irish number in the BBC list - Boy George:D)

I'll kick off a few:

Wolfe Tone
Michael Collins
Eamon deValera
Padraig Pearse
WB Yeats
Brian Boru
Douglas Hyde (mostly for Irish language stuff)
Fionn McCumhaill
James Joyce
Arthur Guinness
Daniel O'Connell
GB Shaw
Oscar Wilde
Oliver Plunkett
Sam Beckett
Brendan the Navigator
St Colmcille/Columba
Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington)
Edward Carson
Phil Lynott
Diarmuid McMurrough (OK maybe not great but affected irish history for the next 800 years)
Jonathan Swift
William Rowan Hamilton
Robert Boyle
William Thomson (Lord Kelvin)
Kathleen Lonsdale
William Parsons (Earl of Rosse)

All I can think of off-hand, all irish born (AFAIK)

Dazzer

lol they have Bono listed, hes from Glasnevin

pickarooney

Only two sports heroes it says, and then goes on to list
Bobby Moore, Steve Redgrave, and David Beckham.
They have a point though.

Victor

Some of this is borrowed from www.gov.ie

Wasn't Shackleton (he of the South Pole) Irish?

Penn (Pennsylvania)

Edmund Rice

St. Brendan

James Hoban from County Kilkenny was the architect who designed the White House in1792

Commodore John Barry from Wexford is referred to as the father of the US Navy

John Philip Holland from County Clare designed the submarine, which was later used by the US Government

John Tyndall from County Carlow (scientist) is best remembered for explaining, why the sky is blue

South Boston born James Brendan Connolly, whose parents were from Inis Mór, Aran Islands, was the first ever modem Olympic Champion, he won Gold in the Hop, Step and Jump (Triple Jump) in 1896

Chaim Herzog, sixth President of the State of Israel, was born in Belfast in 1918

Stephen Roche

Sean Kelly

Michael Collins was the first Irishman in space, he remained in lunar orbit while his Apollo 11 colleagues, Edwin Aldrin and Neil Armstrong walked on the moon (21st July 1969)

John Robert Gregg from County Monaghan invented the internationally used Gregg Shorthand System

Catherine Elizabeth McAuley from Dublin established the congregation of the Sisters of Mercy in 1831

Ten Irish people have won Nobel prizes:

William Butler Yeats (Literature)
George Bernard Shaw (Literature)
Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (joint) (Physics)
Samuel Beckett (Literature)
Sean MacBride (Peace)
Mairead Corrigan & Betty Williams (Peace)
Seamus Heaney (Literature)
John Hume & David Trimble (is he a paddy?) (Peace)

mike65

Eamon deValera

I thought he was a Yank? of Spanish-Irish background.

edit just checked-

Eamon de Valera was born in Manhattan, New York, on 14th October 1882. His father was Juan de Valera, a Spaniard who had studied to be a sculptor but due to ill- health he had reverted to teaching music. In September 1881, Juan de Valera had married Kate Coll from Knockmore, near Bruree, Co. Limerick, a young girl who had emigrated to America two years earlier.

Sean McBride

Sean MacBride, son of Maud Gonne and Major John MacBride, was born in Paris....

Michael Collins (the astronaut)

NAME: Michael Collins (BGEN, USAR, Ret.)
NASA Astronaut (former) PERSONAL DATA: Born in Rome, Italy, on October 31, 1930. Married to the former Patricia M. Finnegan of Boston, Massachusetts.

All as Irish as Bono and Sir Bob are British?!

Mike.

sceptre

/me slaps self on wrist. Clean forgot deValera was born in NY - didn't know about McBride TBH (but just noticed I left him off my list)

The Michael Collins on my list was the one in that movie about deValera with Alan Rickman in it, rather than the space cadet

Still all Irish though - I was jut trying to simplify it by limiting my list to people of Irish birth

(William Penn was born in Tower Hill in London btw)

Nice list Victor.

Von

Shackleton was born in Kildare I think. Bit of an eccentric. He chose his crew on the basis that if they looked alright, they were in. It says in Endurance that he chose his physicist by asking him bout his teeth, whether he had varicose veins and if he could sing. He never lost a man on his expeditions.

Flann O'Brien - Writer. An Beal Bocht should be on the curriculum.
John Scotus Erigena - 9th century Philosopher and theologian.
Buck Whaley - 18th century gadabout.
Hanna Sheehy Skeffington - Suffragette.

Manach

No particular order
Cu Chulain
Edmund Burke
W. B. Yeats
Eamon DeVelera
St Bridgit
Charles Parnell
Hugh O’Neill
Brian Boru
Daniel O’Connell
Michael Collins

Victor

Originally posted by sceptre
(William Penn was born in Tower Hill in London btw)

Ah, didn't know, he had lived near Ballycotton in Cork.

Originally posted by sceptre
Nice list Victor.

Mostly plagerism from www.gov.ie

DadaKopf

The fella who perfected the science of hanging was Irish (lived in Ranelagh) and the mafia origin of "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse" and the trick of sticking a gun behind a toilet cistern is from the Irish mafia in America.

They got my vote.

Blitzkrieger

They completly forgot........ME! The bastards!

There's so many great Irish people, and indeed, great people in every country, such a list is meaningless.

Victor

Originally posted by Blitzkrieger
There's so many great Irish people, and indeed, great people in every country

Of course there is. I is the part time lollipop lady any less worth than a child-minder or a teacher or a doctor or a politician? Of course not, what makes people great is when judged against their peers (in time, place and vocation), that they have exceeded all expectations.

The list isn't completely meaningless when it shows people what can be achieved and inspires them to achieve their best, even if that means you make only one person better off after you cross paths.

DapperGent

Sean Lemass
Sir Francis Beaufort
Mary Robinson
Liam Brady

DeVore

Brendan Behan!

DeV.

Occidental

& Sean O'Casey before him

Victor

Boole (of iota and Boolean logic)

Was Boyle Irish? (gas laws)

DiscoStu

Originally posted by Victor
Boole (of iota and Boolean logic)

i thought he was english.

Victor

Originally posted by DiscoStu
i thought he was english.

Ah!

George Boole
Born: 2 Nov 1815 in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England
Died: 8 Dec 1864 in Ballintemple, County Cork, Ireland

Boole was appointed to the chair of mathematics at Queens College, Cork in 1849. He taught there for the rest of his life, gaining a reputation as an outstanding and dedicated teacher.

http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Boole.html

Robert Boyle
Born: 25 Jan 1627 in Lismore, County Waterford, Ireland
Died: 30 Dec 1691 in London, England.

http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Boyle.html

Mountjoy Mugger

paddy20??!!

Typedef

Michael Davitt.
CS Parnell.
Isaac Butt.
Joseph Beggar.
Mary Robinson.
Padraig Pearse.
Gerry Adams.
John A. Costello (Declared Ireland a Republic).

Thomas from Presence

Garry Moore (Great Guitarist with Cheese bag tendencies)
Rory Gallagher (Great Guitarist)
Bishop Berekely (Empiricist who went to Trinners)
Chester Beaty (honorary citizen, does that count?!)

Seul

Originally posted by Von
.shtml] here.[/URL] There's a few paddies on it

Do you like to be-little yourself?

We're called Irish people
not Paddies

Bard

Originally posted by Seul
Do you like to be-little yourself?

We're called Irish people
not Paddies

The word "paddies" is hardly a slur on the Irish nation. He's not "belittling" himself - he's using a common colloquial term and not expecting people to take it so seriously. Lighten up !

Oh and my contribution to the list...:

Paul Brady

Gay Byrne (seriously)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Roddy Doyle

Bob Geldof

Richard Harris

Patrick Kavanagh

Frank McCourt

Christy Moore

Dermot Morgan

Conor Cruise O'Brien

William Butler Yeats

DiscoStu

Originally posted by Bard

Richard Harris

acording to sky news richard harris was british.

morons :rolleyes:

monument

Originally posted by Seul
Do you like to be-little yourself?

We're called Irish people
not Paddies

Yea as bard said lighten up a bit

Bard

Originally posted by DiscoStu
acording to sky news richard harris was british.

morons :rolleyes:

He was born, as I was, in Limerick. I reckon that makes him Irish...

DiscoStu

the moron part was in regards to sky news :rolleyes:

Talliesin

British adj. 1. Someone who was born in Britain. 2. A citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 3. An Irish person who has gained fame and respect. 4. A white English-speaking citizen of a Commonwealth nation who has gained fame and respect, and who doesn't have a particularly strong accent.

Hobbes

Originally posted by sceptre
Wolfe Tone

There was an email going around that people were trying to mess up the voting by getting everyone to vote for that.