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Sligo, a town in the north-west of Ireland and county town of County Sligo, has produced noted artists, authors, entertainers, politicians and business-people. This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness.
- 10 – Jackie Kennedy Onassis
- 9 – Bruce Springsteen
- 8 – Frank Mccourt
- 7 – Maureen O’Hara
- 6 – Nellie Bly
- 5 – Barack Obama
- 4 – Eileen Marie Collins
- 3 – Billy The Kid
- 2 – Michael Flatley
- 1 – John F. Kennedy
While most people are aware of her husband’s Irish roots Jackie Kennedy Onassis’ family history also leads back to Ireland. Despite publically embracing her paternal French genes through Chanel suits and signature sunnies, Onassis’ mother, Janet, was of Irish ancestry. But despite eight maternal generations coming from Co. Clare in the West of Irel...
Ok, so he might not have changed the world but he has certainly rocked the world of many fans for years. But while Bruce Springsteen is famously known to have been born in the USA his ancestry leads back to the Emerald Isle. Descending from the Gerrity family in Co. Kildare Springsteen’s great-great-great-grandfather was, in fact, one of the brave ...
Frank McCourt was an Irish-American author who is widely known for his best selling memoir, Angela’s Ashes. It is an honest account of his poverty-stricken childhood in the lanes of Limerick during the Great Depression. Despite living in Brooklyn, New York, McCourt’s immigrant parents decided to return to Ireland but ended up worse off than where t...
In 1939 a feisty Irish teenager arrived in Hollywood and stole many hearts. She appeared in The Hunchback of Notre Dame before securing a contract with RKO Pictures and becoming the face of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Her name was Maureen O’Hara and she was Dublin born and bred. Despite spending much of her childhood as a self-confessed ‘Tom Boy’ ...
Elizabeth Cochran Seaman accepted her claim to fame as investigative journalist Nellie Bly in the late 1800s. Bly was born in Pennsylvania during the American Civil War. Her grandfather, Robert Cochran had emigrated to the United States from Derry in the 1790s. Not only was Bly one of the first women to expose the horrendous working conditions of t...
In 1850 Falmouth Kearney, a cobbler’s son from Co. Offaly, boarded the Marmion ship from Liverpool to seek his fortune in the Land of the Free. He left behind blight, starvation and poverty and became one of many immigrant labourers in the city of New York. Fast forward 169 years and boom…you have Barack Obama…great-great-great grandson of Kearney,...
Eileen Marie Collins was one of the first female pilots for the U.S. Airforce. In 1979 she made history when she became the Airforce’s first ever woman flight instructor. But her achievements were by no means complete and she went on to become an astronaut, becoming the first woman to ever command a U.S. spacecraft in 1999. Collins was born in New ...
Billy the Kid was born William Henry McCarty to an Irish woman from Co. Antrim. Catherine McCarty had emigrated to America during the Great Hunger where she stayed until her death. Noted for her warm Irish charm, she spent much of The Kid’s childhood as a single mother. No evidence has been found to confirm The Kid’s father was also Irish although ...
Love him or loathe him, Irish-American dancer and choreographer Michael Flatley changed the world of Irish dancing forever. He shot to fame as his shows Riverdance and The Lord of the Dance became international sensations, making him a millionaire almost overnight. Flatley was born in Chicago to Irish immigrant parents. His father was from Co. Slig...
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the first Irish-Catholic president of the United States, was proud of his Irish ancestry. He had paternal links to Counties Cork and Wexford while his mother’s heritage leads back to Counties Limerick and Cavan. Both the Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys travelled to the United States to seek their fortune during a time of pover...
The list below includes some internationally ‘well-known’ people with Sligo ancestry or connections. William Bourke Cockran (1854–1923) was an Irish-American politician and a leading orator of the late 19th and early 20th century.
People from County Sligo. The list "People from County Sligo" has been viewed 54 times. This list has 5 sub-lists and 192 members. See also County Sligo, People from the Republic of Ireland by county, People from Connacht. FLAG.
The valiant contributions of many Sligo men and women down through history are among the stories presented at EPIC: The Irish Emigration Museum in the beautiful vaults of the 1820 Custom House ...
- Irish Independent
Jul 29, 2024 · The names of the first Sligo families included Lyon, Reynolds, Coulter, Craig, and McAuley, indicating a Scots-Irish influence.
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Medieval history. The Norman knight Maurice Fitzgerald, the Justiciar of Ireland, is generally credited with the establishment of the medieval European-style town and port of Sligo, building Sligo Castle in 1245.
