Life
He was born at Cultra House, Holywood, Co. Down as the only son of John Kane Boyd, co-proprietor of the Blackstaff Mill. [1] Boyd, a member of the Church of Ireland, was born in Holywood, County Down and studied medicine at Queen's College,in 1886. Belfast. [2] He worked for a time in Birmingham and returned in 1888 to Belfast to work at the Hospital for Sick Children, Queen Street, as assistant surgeon. He later became gynaecologist at the Ulster Hospital for Children and Women. [3]
In 1895, he became the first President of the first Belfast branch of the Gaelic League, formed in east Belfast under the patronage of other committed unionists: Boyd's minister, the Rev. John Baptiste Crozier, [4] and Orange Order Grand Master, the Rev. Richard Rutledge Kane. [5] [6] : 86–87 In its early years, Boyd may ave been the League's largest financial donor. [1] He was also involved with the Dublin Pipers' Club and adjudicated at musical festivals. In the 1890s he was a member of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, for which he wrote a number of articles. [1]
He married Helen Anne Cochran Macadam on 1 November 1887 at Duddingston Parish Church, Edinburgh. [7]
Conradh na Gaeilge is a social and cultural organisation which promotes the Irish language in Ireland and worldwide. The organisation was founded in 1893 with Douglas Hyde as its first president, when it emerged as the successor of several 19th century groups such as the Gaelic Union. The organisation was a spearhead of the Gaelic revival and of Gaeilgeoir activism.
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Henry Henry was an Irish Roman Catholic Prelate and from 1895 until 1908 he held the title Lord Bishop of Down and Connor. He was known for his energy and zeal, as well as his overt activism in local politics, founding the 'Belfast Catholic Association'.
John Baptist Crozier was a Church of Ireland bishop. He served as Bishop of Ossory, Ferns and Leighlin (1897–1907), Bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore (1907–1911), Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh (1911–1920).
Captain Richard Cecil Rutledge Kane, MC was the United Kingdom's fourth Resident Commissioner of the Solomon Islands Protectorate, serving from 1921 to 1929. He had previously worked in Fiji as District Commissioner for Rewa, as well as serving in the colony's Legislative Council.
Sophia Rosamond Praeger, MBE, HRHA, MA was an Irish artist, sculptor, illustrator, poet and writer.
James Lawson Drummond was an Irish physician, naturalist and botanist.
James McSparran QC, was an Irish barrister and nationalist politician.
Thomas James Welland was an Irish Anglican bishop.
Reginald Arthur Edward Magee, known as Reggie Magee, was a unionist politician and gynaecologist in Northern Ireland.
Vere Henry Louis Foster was an Anglo-Irish philanthropist, educationalist and free thinker. After following his Irish father into the British diplomatic service, with postings in South America, in Ireland he was moved by the Great Famine to organise relief efforts and to improve the conditions of passage for emigrants. These he, himself, experienced travelling steerage to the United States. Later, he supported national schools in Ireland and was first president of what is today Ireland largest teachers' union the Irish National Teachers' Organisation. He died in Belfast where he had been working for the relief of the sick and the poor.
James MacDonnell was an Irish physician and polymath who was an active and liberal figure in the civic and political life of Belfast. He was a founding patron of institutions that have since developed as the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and the Linen Hall Library and, beginning with the organisation of the Belfast Harpers Assembly in 1792, was a promoter of efforts to preserve and revive Irish music and the Irish language. Among some of his contemporaries his reputation suffered in 1803 as a result of his making a subscription for the arrest of his friend, the outlawed United Irishman Thomas Russell.
John Boyd (1912–2002) was a Northern Irish teacher, radio producer, and playwright. Noted for his ability to reproduce the speech of working class Belfast, he has been described as Northern Ireland's most important playwright, and encouraged the careers of other writers including Seamus Heaney and Stewart Parker.
Robert Shipboy MacAdam was an Irish antiquary, folklorist and linguist and was the most active figure among the Belfast Presbyterians prominent in the early Irish-language revival. He was a secretary of Cuideacht Gaoidhilge Uladh, president of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society, and the founding editor of the Ulster Journal of Archaeology. Together with the 20th century Gaelic scholar Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich, since 1991 his memory has been honoured in the name of Belfast's Irish-language cultural centre Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich.
The Rev. Gerald William Peacocke was an Irish religious leader and sportsman who served as Archdeacon of Kildare (1923–1944). He was the son of Joseph Peacocke who had been Archbishop of Dublin.
Richard Rutledge Kane (1841–1898) was a Church of Ireland minister, an outspoken Irish unionist and Orangeman, and an early patron of the Gaelic League. A dominant personality in the life of Belfast, his funeral procession in 1898 was purportedly one of the largest seen in the city.
