Thursday, January 11, 2007
The 100 Greatest Irish people - Results
A few months back here on United Irelander I started the 100 Greatest Irish People project in an effort to compile a list of the greatest figures in this island's history.Having taken your votes into account I can reveal that Michael Collins has come top of the pile.
Thank you to all who participated in this little experiment.
I was unsure how I would compile the final list but in the end I decided the fairest way would be to base it upon your own votes. However, in cases where individuals have the same number of votes, I made a judgement call on who deserved to be higher.
Personally speaking, my top ten would have been very different to this one featured as de Valera would have featured in mine, as would figures like Ernest Shackleton and Tom Crean. Also, I doubt I would have placed Collins at the top of my list. At any rate, this is the completed list.
I have produced the list in total below including the amount of votes for each individual as well as some tidbits about the 100 names:
1. Michael Collins (33 votes)
2. Patrick Pearse (31 votes)
3. W.B. Yeats (30 votes)
4. Daniel O'Connell (30 votes)
5. James Joyce (29 votes)
6. Countess Markiewicz (29 votes)
7. Wolfe Tone (28 votes)
8. James Connolly (28 votes)
9. Charles Stewart Parnell (28 votes)
10. James Larkin (27 votes)
11. Eamon de Valera (26 votes)
12. Douglas Hyde (25 votes)
13. Ernest Shackleton (23 votes)
14. Sean McBride (23 votes)
15. George Best (23 votes)
16. Roger Casement (22 votes)
17. Brian Boru (21 votes)
18. Arthur Griffith (21 votes)
19. Oliver Plunkett (21 votes)
20. Hugh O'Neill (20 votes)
21. Oscar Wilde (19 votes)
22. John Hume (19 votes)
23. Ernest Walton (18 votes)
24. Sean O'Casey (18 votes)
25. Jonathan Swift (17 votes)
26. Arthur Guinness (17 votes)
27. Samuel Beckett (16 votes)
28. Brendan Behan (16 votes)
29. Maude Gonne (15 votes)
30. Patrick Sarsfield (14 votes)
31. William Rowan Hamilton (14 votes)
32. Robert Emmet (13 votes)
33. Duke of Wellington (13 votes)
34.Terence McSwiney (13 votes)
35. Eoghan Rua O'Neill (13 votes)
36. C.S. Lewis (12 votes)
37. Michael Davitt (12 votes)
38. Richard Harris (12 votes)
39. George Bernard Shaw (11 votes)
40. Bobby Sands (11 votes)
41. Garret Fitzgerald (11 votes)
42. Robert Boyle (11 votes)
43. Tom Crean (9 votes)
44. Thomas Francis Meagher (9 votes)
45. Sean Lemass (9 votes)
46. Kevin O'Higgins (9 votes)
47. Mary Robinson (9 votes)
48. Chaim Herzog (9 votes)
49. T.K. Whitaker (8 votes)
50. Thomas Clarke (8 votes
51. Edward Carson (8 votes)
52. Francis Bacon (8 votes)
53. Blessed Edmund Rice (7 votes)
54. Anne Devlin (7 votes)
55. Bono (7 votes)
56. Grace O'Malley (7 votes)
57. Lord Edward Fitzgerald (7 votes)
58. Bram Stoker (6 votes)
59. Jack Lynch (6 votes)
60 Henry Joy McCracken (6 votes)
61. Saint Brendan (6 votes)
62. Eoin MacNeill (6 votes)
63. Seamus Heaney (6 votes)
64. John Redmond (5 votes)
65. Saint Patrick (5 votes)
66. John Millington Synge (5 votes)
67. Phil Lynott (5 votes)
68. Patrick Kavanagh (5 votes)
69. Terence O'Neill (5 votes)
70 Peter O'Toole (5 votes)
71. Gay Byrne (5 votes)
72. Lord Castlereagh (5 votes)
73. Henry Grattan (4 votes)
74. Thomas Ashe (4 votes)
75. Tom Barry (4 votes)
76. Harry Clarke (4 votes)
77. Susan Jocelyn Bell (4 votes)
78. Red Hugh O'Donnell (3 votes)
79. Edmund Burke (3 votes)
80. Phelim O'Neill (3 votes)
81. Thomas Russell (3 votes)
82. John Devoy (3 votes)
83. John Barry (3 votes)
84. Bob Geldof (3 votes)
85. Erskine Childers (3 votes)
86. Alex Higgins (3 votes)
87. Lord Kelvin 9 (3 votes)
88. George Berkeley (3 votes)
89. Isaac Butt (2 votes)
90. John Philip Holland (2 votes)
91. Harry Ferguson (2 votes)
92. Charles Parsons (2 votes)
93. Martin Sheridan (2 votes)
94. Roy Keane (2 votes)
95. Lady Gregory (2 votes)
96. William Parsons (1 vote)
97. Kathleen Clarke (1 vote)
98. John Tyndall (1 vote)
99. William Massey (0 votes)
100. John Ballance (0 votes)
Interesting facts about the list:
- 10 people on the list were not actually born on the island. They include figures such as James Connolly and Thomas Clarke who were born in Edinburgh and on the Isle of Wight respectively.
- Dubliners make up the majority of the list with 29 of them featured. Coming second is Antrim who can boast 11 individuals, most of whom are from Belfast. Cork has eight of its natives featured.
- Of the 90 figures born on the island, 42 of them are from Leinster, 22 are from Ulster, 19 are from Munster and just 7 are from Connacht.
- Only 2 of the top 10 are non-political figures. They are W.B. Yeats in 3rd place and James Joyce in 5th.
- Of the 32 counties in the island of Ireland, 8 do not have any natives featured.
- Of the 6 counties which now encompass Northern Ireland, the only county to be without a name is Fermanagh.
- Of the 26 counties which form the Republic of Ireland, the 7 without names are Leitrim, Sligo, Tipperary, Louth, Westmeath, Longford, Cavan.
- There are 92 men featured, and only 8 women.
Once again thank you to all who voted and thus helped put the list together. It was interesting to see who remains popular in the eyes of Irish people. Who knows, maybe an RTE executive will have a read of this and decide to put one together for TV.
# posted by United Irelander @ 2:03 PM 
© 2008 United Irelander.
