Joan Denise Moriarty

Joan Denise Moriarty: Renowned dancer, choreographer and director of Dance. She is believed to be born in Mallow though date and place of her birth are uncertain. She opened her first Ballet School in Mallow in 1934 and went on to found the Cork Ballet Company in 1947 and The Irish Ballet Company in 1973. She choreographed several ballets in her career including Playboy of The Western World, and The Táin. She also composed several other short ballets on Irish themes. The National University of Ireland conferred an honorary doctorate on her in 1979 and she was awarded a People of the Year Award in 1982. She died in Cork in 1992.

Sources

Swift, Carolyn, in Encyclopaedia of Ireland (ed. Brian Lalor). Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2003.
Boylan, H. (ed.), A Dictionary of Irish Biography. 3rd ed. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1998.