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Read more about the RIAThe Dictionary of Irish Biography is Ireland’s national biographical dictionary. Devised, researched, written and edited under the auspices of the Royal Irish Academy, its online edition covers nearly 11,000 lives.
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Check out our specially curated selection of some of the most notorious rogues of the DIB, including pirates, blackmailers, thieves and murderers...
The DIB has curated a selection of its most notorious rogues – pirates, blackmailers, thieves and murderers – for your delectation. Described as ‘king of the cat burglars’ or ‘the human fly’, Gulston stole more than £35 million worth of jewels and furs. His high profile targets included Sophia Loren, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Elizabeth Taylor.
The DIB has curated a selection of its most notorious rogues – pirates, blackmailers, thieves and murderers – for your delectation. Our next rogue is Caroline Rudd, whose trial for forgery was one of the most sensational court cases of the eighteenth century and was serialised in newspapers across Britain and Ireland.
The DIB has curated a selection of its most notorious rogues – pirates, blackmailers, thieves and murderers – for your delectation. Working with William Plunkett, Maclaine established the myth of the dashing gentleman highwayman. His trial was well attended by ladies enamoured of his romantic image.
The DIB has curated a selection of its most notorious rogues – pirates, blackmailers, thieves and murderers – for your delectation. Next in our catalogue of crime is the infamous William Burke, who turned to murder to earn a lucrative fee providing dead bodies to early nineteenth-century anatomists.
The DIB has curated a selection of its most notorious rogues – pirates, blackmailers, thieves and murderers – for your delectation. Next up is Mary Ann Duignan aka ‘Chicago May’, a one-time chorus girl who supported a showy lifestyle of jewels, furs and first-class travel through blackmail, prostitution and theft.
The DIB has curated a selection of its most notorious rogues – pirates, blackmailers, thieves and murderers – for your delectation. We start with Anne Bonney, perhaps the most famous female pirate of all time, who terrorised the coasts of Cuba and Hispaniola alongside Captain Calico Jack.
Please write to the Managing Editor, Dictionary of Irish Biography, Royal Irish Academy, 19 Dawson Street, Dublin 2, Ireland, or email dib@ria.ie