Blue
(and green!)
Plaques
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. Below are a list of Irish people who have been recognised for their accomplishments.
Michael Collins
Barnsbury Street, Islington
Michael Collins was an Irish revolutionary, soldier and politician who was a leading figure in the early-20th century struggle for Irish independence. During the War of Independence he was Director of Intelligence of the Irish Republican Army and a government minister of the self-declared Irish Republic. Born in Cork.
Oscar Wilde
34 Tite Street, Chelsea
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. Born in Dublin.
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Samuel Beckett
48 Paultons Square, Chelsea
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. Born in Dublin.
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Bram Stoker
18 St Leonard's Terrace, Chelsea
Abraham Stoker was an Irish author who wrote the 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor Sir Henry Irving and business manager of the West End's Lyceum Theatre, which Irving owned. Born in Dublin.
Ernest Shackleton
12 Westwood Hill, Sydenham
Major Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton CVO OBE FRGS FRSGS was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Born in Kildare.
W.B. Yeats
23 Fitzroy Road, Primrose Hill
Irish poet, dramatist, writer and politician. One of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature born in Dublin.
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Daniel O'Connell
Albemarle Street
Daniel O'Connell successfully campaigned for Catholic and civil rights - including the right of Catholics to sit in the British Parliament, achieved in 1829 - and his opposition to slavery was crucial to its abolition in 1833 within British jurisdictions. THe studied at the Inns of Court before being called to the Irish Bar. Once he took his parliamentary seat in 1830 as the first popularly elected Catholic MP since the Reformation, he sat in the Commons for the rest of his life, becoming a major player in Westminster.
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