Mary Robinson World Economic Forum 2013 crop

''Ireland's Greatest'' was a 2010 public poll by Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) and associated television documentary series broadcast on

RTÉ One RTÉ One is an Irish free-to-air flagship television channel owned and operated by RTÉ. It is the most-popular and most-watched television channel in the country and was launched as ''Telefís Éireann'' on 31 December 1961, it was renamed ''R ...

, where viewers voted to choose the greatest person in the

history of Ireland The first evidence of human presence in Ireland dates to around 34,000 years ago, with further findings dating the presence of ''Homo sapiens'' to around 10,500 to 7,000 BC. The receding of the ice after the Younger Dryas cold phase of the Qua ...

. The concept was based on the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

series ''

100 Greatest Britons ''100 Greatest Britons'' is a television series that was broadcast by the BBC in 2002. It was based on a television poll conducted to determine who the British people at that time considered the greatest Britons in history. The series included i ...

''. The winner was

John Hume John Hume (18 January 19373 August 2020) was an Irish nationalist politician in Northern Ireland and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. A founder and leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Hume served in the Parliament of Northern Irel ...

Format

To draw up an initial shortlist of 40 names, RTÉ commissioned an

opinion poll An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll, is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of qu ...

of 1,000 members of the public, carried out by Ipsos MRBI in late 2009. The shortlist was published on 22 March 2010 on the RTÉ.ie website, and readers could vote for their preferred person for 12 days, ending on 2 April; one vote per

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...

was permitted. The top ten was announced on '' The Tubridy Show'' with

Myles Dungan Myles Dungan is an Irish broadcaster and author. He has presented many arts programmes on RTÉ Radio, and has also been a sports broadcaster on RTÉ Television. Since October 2010 he has been the presenter of "The History Show" on RTÉ Radio One ...

on 5 April 2010. The top five was established at this point, but not publicised until RTÉ's programming schedule for autumn 2010 was unveiled in August. Each of the top five was profiled in a one-hour documentary programme broadcast in autumn 2010 and presented by a public figure advocating that person's claim to the title of "greatest person". Viewers voted for the overall winner, announced on '' The Late Late Show'' on 22 October 2010.

Rankings

Top five

The ranking of the top five, and the advocates who each present a one-hour documentary about one of them, were as follows:

Top 40

The following people were shortlisted:

Criticism

The list of nominees for ''Ireland's Greatest'' was criticised by historians Diarmuid Ferriter,

Tim Pat Coogan Timothy Patrick "Tim Pat" Coogan (born 22 April 1935) is an Irish journalist, writer and broadcaster. He served as editor of ''The Irish Press'' newspaper from 1968 to 1987. He has been best known for such books as ''The IRA'', ''Ireland Since t ...

, and Maurice Manning, and ''

Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It was launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is Ireland's leading n ...

'' columnist Noel Whelan. They said that the list was skewed towards recent times, and that many nominees were celebrities from popular culture or sport rather than people who had made a lasting contribution to society; Ferriter said "It is going to be very hard to take this seriously for historians".

Ryan Tubridy Ryan Tubridy (born 28 May 1973) is an Irish broadcaster. He currently presents the weekday mid-morning programme ''The Ryan Tubridy Show'' on Virgin Radio UK, as well as a weekend programme on Sundays. His broadcasting career with RTÉ spanned ...

, who presents '' The Late Late Show'', commented, "There are some really silly names in there. It's contentious to say the least". Liam Dolan in the '' Sunday Independent'' called it "a shambolic litany of well-intentioned do-gooders and talented non-entities". People whose inclusion attracted criticism included

Stephen Gately Stephen Patrick David Gately (17 March 197610 October 2009) was an Irish singer who, with Ronan Keating, was co-lead singer of the pop group Boyzone. All of Boyzone's studio albums during Gately's lifetime hit number one in the United Kingdom, ...

Louis Walsh Michael Louis Vincent Walsh (born 5 August 1952) is an Irish music manager and television personality. He has managed Johnny Logan (singer), Johnny Logan, Boyzone, Jedward and Westlife, four of Ireland's most successful pop acts in the 1990s an ...

and Daniel O'Donnell. '' The Belfast Telegraph'' noted the absence of

Van Morrison Sir George Ivan "Van" Morrison (born 31 August 1945) is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician whose recording career started in the 1960s. Morrison's albums have performed well in the UK and Ireland, with more than 40 reaching the UK ...

and

George Best George Best (22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005) was a Northern Irish professional association football, footballer who played as a winger (association football), winger, spending most of his club career at Manchester United F.C., Manchester Un ...

; other absentees noted were

Michael Davitt Michael Davitt (25 March 1846 – 30 May 1906) was an Irish republicanism, Irish republican activist for a variety of causes, especially Home Rule (Ireland), Home Rule and land reform. Following an eviction when he was four years old, Davitt's ...

, John McCormack,

William Rowan Hamilton Sir William Rowan Hamilton (4 August 1805 – 2 September 1865) was an Irish astronomer, mathematician, and physicist who made numerous major contributions to abstract algebra, classical mechanics, and optics. His theoretical works and mathema ...

, Lady Gregory, and

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

. Ken Sweeney in the ''

Irish Independent The ''Irish Independent'' is an Irish daily newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray backgrou ...

'' criticised the ranking of Stephen Gately ahead of

Éamon de Valera Éamon de Valera (; ; first registered as George de Valero; changed some time before 1901 to Edward de Valera; 14 October 1882 – 29 August 1975) was an American-born Irish statesman and political leader. He served as the 3rd President of Ire ...

. The dearth of women —3 out of 40— was also noted. Website science.ie responded to the lack of scientists on the RTÉ shortlist by organising its own poll for Ireland's greatest scientist, won by

Robert Boyle Robert Boyle (; 25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, Alchemy, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the foun ...

Ireland's Greatest Women

In 2005,

Marian Finucane Marian Finucane ( ; 21 May 1950 – 2 January 2020) was an Irish people, Irish broadcaster with RTÉ. Finucane began working with the national broadcaster in 1974, starting as a continuity announcer. She went on to host ''Women Today'' (1979– ...

's radio show organised a similar poll to find Ireland's greatest woman. There were some claims of

ballot-stuffing Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud, or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share o ...

. The top ten were: # Nano Nagle, (1718-1784) founder of the Presentation Sisters #

Mary Robinson Mary Therese Winifred Robinson (; ; born 21 May 1944) is an Irish politician who served as the president of Ireland from December 1990 to September 1997. She was the country's first female president. Robinson had previously served as a senato ...

, (1944-)

President of Ireland The president of Ireland () is the head of state of Republic of Ireland, Ireland and the supreme commander of the Defence Forces (Ireland), Irish Defence Forces. The presidency is a predominantly figurehead, ceremonial institution, serving as ...

and

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is a department of the United Nations Secretariat that works to promote and protect human rights that are guaranteed under international law and stipulated in the Univer ...

# Michelle Smith, (1969-) winner of three gold medals and a bronze medal in swimming at the

1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

# Saint Brigid, (451–525) 4th/5th century

abbess An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa'') is the female superior of a community of nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Lutheran and Anglican abbeys, the mod ...

and one of Ireland's

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy or Oriental Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, fa ...

s (many modern historians believe Brigid to be fictional) #

Grace O'Malley Gráinne O'Malley (, ; – ), also known as Grace O'Malley, was the head of the Ó Máille dynasty in the west of Ireland, and the daughter of Eóghan Dubhdara Ó Máille. Upon her father's death, she took over active leadership of the lords ...

, (c.1530–c.1603) Galway pirate # Christina Noble, (1944-) founder of the Christina Noble Children's Foundation # Edel Quinn, (1907-1944)

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

missionary # Sophia McColgan, child abuse survivor # Kathleen Lynn, (1874-1955)

suffragette A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( ; ; ) is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The History of Sinn Féin, original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffit ...

TD and

Easter Rising The Easter Rising (), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the aim of establishing an ind ...

participant # Nora Herlihy, (1910–1988) co-founder of the Irish League of Credit Unions

''Ireland's Greatest Sportsperson''

In September 2009, RTÉ ran an online poll in sponsored by

Paddy Power Paddy Power is an Irish gambling company founded in 1988. Its product offering includes sports betting, online casino, online poker, and online bingo. Business operations are led from its headquarters in Dublin, alongside a satellite office ...

to nominate Ireland's greatest sportsperson. A shortlist of 32 names was selected by a panel of experts. The top ten was announced on 31 December 2009: #

Pádraig Harrington Pádraig Peter Harrington (born 31 August 1971) is an Irish professional golfer who plays on the European Tour, PGA Tour and the PGA Tour Champions. He has won three men's major golf championships, major championships: The Open Championship in 2 ...

(1971-) (golf) #

Brian O'Driscoll Brian Gerard O'Driscoll (born 21 January 1979) is an Irish former professional rugby union player. He played at outside Centre (rugby union), centre for the Irish provincial team Leinster Rugby, Leinster and for Ireland national rugby union te ...

(1979-) (rugby union) #

Joey Dunlop William Joseph Dunlop (25 February 1952 – 2 July 2000) was a Northern Irish roadracing motorcyclist from Ballymoney, County Antrim. In 2015, he was voted Northern Ireland's greatest-ever sports star. Dunlop lies second on the list of all-ti ...

(1952-2000) (motorcycling) #

(1946-2005) (soccer) #

Roy Keane Roy Maurice Keane (born 10 August 1971) is an Irish football pundit, former coach, and former professional player. He is best known for his career in the Premier League, in particular his captaincy of Manchester United. He is the joint most ...

(1971-) (soccer) # Sean Kelly (1956-) (cycling) # Sonia O'Sullivan (1969-) (athletics) # Christy Ring (1920-1979) (hurling and Gaelic football) #

Vincent O'Brien Michael Vincent O'Brien (9 April 1917 – 1 June 2009) was an Irish race horse trainer from Churchtown, County Cork, Ireland. In 2003 he was voted the greatest influence in horse racing history in a worldwide poll hosted by the ''Racing Pos ...

(1917-2009) (horse racing) # Paul McGrath (1959-) (soccer) The other 22 were: D. J. Carey, Eamonn Coghlan, Ronnie Delany,

Ken Doherty Kenneth Joseph Doherty (born 17 September 1969) is an Irish professional snooker player who also works as a commentator and pundit on televised snooker broadcasts. From Ranelagh in Dublin, he is the sport's only World Snooker Championship, wor ...

, Mike Gibson,

Johnny Giles Michael John Giles (born 6 November 1940) is an Irish former association football player and manager best remembered for his time as a midfielder with Leeds United in the 1960s and 1970s. After retiring from management in 1985, Giles served as ...

, Kevin Heffernan,

Alex Higgins Alexander Gordon Higgins (18 March 1949 – 24 July 2010) was a Northern Irish professional snooker player and a two-time world champion who is remembered as one of the most iconic figures in the sport's history. Nicknamed "Hurricane Higgi ...

, Jack Kyle, Eddie Macken, Tony McCoy, Barry McGuigan,

Aidan O'Brien Aidan Patrick O'Brien (born 16 October 1969 in County Wexford, Ireland) Aidan O'Brien bio NTRA. ...

Mick O'Connell Michael O'Connell (born 4 January 1937) is an Irish former Gaelic footballer. Throughout his 25-year club career, he played for Young Islanders, winning seven South Kerry Championship titles during a golden age for the club; he also played fo ...

, Christy O'Connor Snr, Mick O'Dwyer, Jack O'Shea, Mary Peters, Stephen Roche, Henry Shefflin, Michelle Smith, and John Treacy.

Ireland's Greatest Scientist

In 2010, the website www.sfi.ie selected its Top 10 Irish scientists, in response to the exclusion of scientists from the RTÉ longlist. #

, (1627-1691) founder of modern

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

and discover of

Boyle's law Boyle's law, also referred to as the Boyle–Mariotte law or Mariotte's law (especially in France), is an empirical gas laws, gas law that describes the relationship between pressure and volume of a confined gas. Boyle's law has been stated as: ...

, (1805-1865) mathematician who developed

Hamiltonian mechanics In physics, Hamiltonian mechanics is a reformulation of Lagrangian mechanics that emerged in 1833. Introduced by Sir William Rowan Hamilton, Hamiltonian mechanics replaces (generalized) velocities \dot q^i used in Lagrangian mechanics with (gener ...

and discovered

quaternion In mathematics, the quaternion number system extends the complex numbers. Quaternions were first described by the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton in 1843 and applied to mechanics in three-dimensional space. The algebra of quater ...

s # Ernest Walton, (1903-1995) physicist who " split the atom"; at the time of broadcast, the only Irish

Nobel laureate The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...

in a science (

Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

, 1951) # Kathleen Lonsdale, (1903-1971) X-ray crystallographer who discovered the molecular structure of

benzene Benzene is an Organic compound, organic chemical compound with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecular formula C6H6. The benzene molecule is composed of six carbon atoms joined in a planar hexagonal Ring (chemistry), ring with one hyd ...

and

diamond Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of e ...

s # Dorothy Price, (1890-1954) introduced the BCG

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

vaccine to Ireland #John Tyndall, (1820-1893) physicist who studied radiant energy in air #Harry Ferguson, (1884-1960) inventor of the modern tractor #George Gabriel Stokes, (1819-1903) physicist who worked in fluid dynamics, optics and mathematical physics; also discovered Stokes' theorem #Fr Nicholas Callan, (1799-1864) who invented the modern induction coil #Charles Algernon Parsons, (1854-1931) inventor of the steam turbine #William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, (1824-1907) who formulated the first and second Laws of Thermodynamics

Other editions

Other countries have produced similar shows; see Greatest Britons spin-offs

References

External links

Ireland's Greatest
from RTÉ website {{Countries' greatest people TV series 2010 Irish television series debuts 2010 Irish television series endings Greatest Nationals, Ireland Television series about the history of Ireland Irish documentary television series Irish history television shows Irish television series based on non-Irish television series Irish television series based on British television series Lists of Irish people RTÉ-related lists RTÉ original programming