can anyone name some famous and accomplished Irish people?

Question

i need to know some Irish people who have done great things, like knobel prize winners and human right leaders and stuff. these people must be born in Ireland and be semi-well known. i also need to know what these people did and any dates and detail would be really good. i need about 100 examples so anyone and everyone who i may be able to use would be great. thanks! please help!

Answer 1

Tom Crean and Ernest Shakleton; Artic explorers were Irish
Mary Robinson; 1st female Irish president
Bob Geldolf: musician and involved in Live8
Eoin Colfer: author
Patrick Kavanagh: Poet
Bram Stoker: author
De Valera/Collins/Pearse: Irish nationalists
Arthur Guinness: for obvious reasons

Plus all those mentioned above... (and Colin Farrell no contribution other than his looks!)

Answer 2

here are some names...just type what you are looking for on yahoo and it will pull up names and info for you.

When Seamus Heaney won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995, the local newspaper ran with the headline "Bellaghy Farmer's Son Wins Major Prize". He became the fourth Irish person to receive the award after Samuel Beckett (1969), George Bernard Shaw (1925), and W.B. Yeats, (1923). (It is said that when W.B. Yeats heard he had won the prize, they cooked a few sausages to celebrate.)
In Heaney's Nobel Lecture, "Crediting Poetry" (December 7, 1995), he refers to the two Irelands at either end of the 20th Century and sees a comparison between Ireland at the time of his award and the Ireland of 1924, when W.B. Yeats received it.

Answer 3

Seamus Heaney (1939- , poet)
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, poet)
William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865, scientist/mathematician, significant discoveries that led to developments in quantum mechanics)
James Joyce (1882-1941, writer)
John Field (1782-1837, considered the first composer to write piano nocturnes)
Francis Beaufort (1774-1857, hydrographer, the Beaufort scale is named after him)
Robert Boyle (1627-1691, scientist, of Boyle's Law)
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900, writer, journalist)
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745, writer)
William Thompson, Lord Kelvin (1824-1907, scientist)

I suppose you could include Bono and Bob Geldof.

Wilde, Swift and Kelvin probably wouldn't have considered themselves Irish, but they were all born in Ireland

Answer 4

Here's some names - just surf for the details - WRITERS: Jonathan Swift,(Gullivers Travels) Bram Stoker ( wrote Dracula), James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, George Bernard Shaw, W B Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Oscar Wilde.

Sean MacBride (Nobel Peace prize), Robert Boyle (physicist), Ernest Walton (Nobel prize for physics), William Hamilton (scientist), Francis Beaufort (Beaufort scale), John Holland (invented submarine), David Trimble (Nobel peace prize), Sir Horace Plunkett (founder of co-operative movement) Bob Geldof, Lucien Bull (ECG) Hope that helps!

Answer 5

Oscar Wilde. Great author and playwright. Check out "The Portrait of Dorian Grey"

P.S. Saint Patrick wasn't Irish and the snakes he drove out are symbolic for the pagans who practiced Ireland's original religion. He brought Catholicism in and is essentially responsible for all the religious strife that Ireland has suffered in the past 1500 years.

Answer 6

Not exactly Nobel Prize material, but The Cranberries are a really good group from Ireland.

Answer 7

Michael Flatley, great Irish dancer.

Answer 8

St. Patrick chased all of the snakes out of Ireland once. Oh and Colin Ferrel for being a jack-off.

Answer 9

Andrew Carnegie.

Bono

BTW, St. Patrick was English.