Wild Irish Women Archive
Mairéad Farrell: A Fanatic Heart
On March 6, 1988, in the shadow of the rock of Gibraltar, British Special Air…
Nora Joyce: The Girl from Galway
Nora Barnacle was 20 when she arrived in Dublin and met James Joyce in 1904….
Lola Ridge, Poet and Anarchist
“How can you help writing about something you feel intensely?” Ireland may have more poets…
More Articles
Deirdre O’Connell’s Fanatic Heart
The Bronx girl who changed the face of Irish theater. An enigma and a shapeshifter, she changed her first name each time her life entered a new incarnation. Baptized Eleanor, she was […]
Wild Irish Woman: “Hello, Suckers!”
Singer, showgirl, and queen of the speakeasy during Prohibition, Mary Guinan was a genuine Irish American wild woman. Larger (and louder) than life, she had an even bigger heart. During […]
Wild Irish Women:Saint Brigid – Mary of the Gaels
A nun, abbess, and founder of several monasteries, Brigid of Kildare was a woman who defied authority, possessed great strength of will and determination, and whose cheerful giving of food […]
Wild Irish Women: Rita Hayworth, the Ravishing and Ravished Redhead
The tragic star who burned too bright but always gave the loveliest light. Her mother, the improbably named Volga, was an ex-Ziegfeld Girl, born to a printer, Allynn Hayworth, and […]
Wild Irish Women: Carmel Snow, the Fashionista
One of the most extraordinary fashion editors of all time was an immigrant from Ireland. The Irish don’t spring to mind when discussing fashionistas, women such as Anna Wintour or […]
What You Didn’t Know About Typhoid Mary
She was the original Patient Zero, a healthy and asymptomatic carrier of a deadly plague. Baptized in Ireland in 1869 as Mary Mallon, she was re-baptized in America as Typhoid […]