Wild Irish Women Trivia Quiz

Answer: Maeve

Queen Maeve of Connacht is the villain of the Irish mythological saga, the Tain. The reason she wanted the bull was because her husband, Ailill, had a white bull in his possession and she was determined to make sure that she owned a bull that was as good as, if not better, than his! The Tain is still a good read, if a little bloody!

Answer: Granuaile

Granuaile (also known as Grace O'Malley) was born in Mayo in about 1530 and died there in 1603, the same year as Elizabeth the First. She was a woman very much ahead of her time and even when she married, she became the de facto leader of the clan of her husband.

Answer: Alice Kyteler

Alice Kyteler is thought to have been born in Kilkenny in 1280 and to have died in England in 1330. It is thought that the reason she was accused of witchcraft was jealousy, as she was a wealthy, independent widow and thus didn't conform to the female stereotype of the time.

While Alice escaped, her servant, Petronilla, didn't- she was burnt alive in Kilkenny in 1324. Alice is still remembered in Kilkenny City - her house is now a pub called the "Kyteler Inn".

Answer: Louison O'Morphi

Marie Louise O'Morphi (this was the French version of her real name, O'Murphy) was born in 1736, the youngest of five girls. She was spotted by none other than Casanova, who introduced her to Boucher. When Louis XV saw the pictures she had posed for, he was entranced and she came to court. Louison managed to survive the Revolution and died in 1815, the year Louis' royal dynasty, the Bourbons, were restored to the French throne.

Answer: Sarah Curran

Sarah Curran lived from 1782 to 1808, and is commemorated in the song by Thomas Moore, "She is Far From the Land".

Answer: Maria Edgeworth

Maria Edgeworth was one of a family of 22 children who lived on their father's estate in County Longford. Her father was a liberal landlord, and believed in educating his children according to the ideas of Rousseau. She died in 1849.

Answer: Lola Montez

Lola Montez was born Eliza Rosana Gilbert and started her career as a dancer in London, albeit with a very limited repertoire based on some lessons she had taken in Spanish dancing. She really hit the headlines when she followed the composer Franz Liszt to Europe. According to Liszt, Lola caused such a fuss that he had to lock her in their hotel room, pay the bill, and leave promptly! She then moved on to have an affair with King Ludwig of Bavaria. Lola Montez moved to America in 1853 and died there of pneumonia in 1861.

Answer: Lady Augusta Gregory

Augusta Gregory was born Isabella Augusta Persse, and married a fellow member of the Anglo-Irish gentry, Sir William Gregory, in 1880. She was hugely interested in native Irish folklore and was also a playwright in her own right. Many of the leading lights of the Anglo-Irish literary movement, such as Yeats and Synge, visited her at her home in Coole Park in County Galway and it became a centre for the literary movement.

Answer: Constance Markievicz

Constance Markievicz was born Constance Gore-Booth in 1868, and picked up the exotic name she is best known by when she married Count Casimir Markievicz, a Polish nobleman she met in Paris. She was a committed Irish republican and founded nationalist movements for young boys and for women.

She was the Minister for Labour in the cabinet set up by the Dail, or Irish parliament, of 1919. She felt that the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 was a betrayal of the Irish Republic, and opposed it to the last. She died in 1927.

Answer: Nora Barnacle

Nora's husband was of course James Joyce. They travelled Europe, posing as husband and wife, and had two children - but they didn't marry until 1931. Nora's own personal favourite out of her husband's works was the extremely difficult "Finnegan's Wake". She died exactly ten years after James, in Zurich in 1951.