Born: 22 December 1902, Ireland
Died: 24 February 2000
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: Daisy Duggan
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by John Kirwan. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Phelan, Margaret Mary (‘Daisy’) (1902–2000), local historian, was born 22 December 1902 at 8 William St., Kilkenny, second child of the marriage of Richard Duggan, businessman (proprietor of the Monster House), and his second wife, Henrietta Fitzgibbon of Castlerea, Co. Mayo, daughter of John Fitzgibbon (1849–1919), draper, Land League activist and MP (1910–18) for Mayo South. In the early 1920s the Duggan family moved to Butler House, Patrick Street, Kilkenny. Margaret Phelan was educated at Loreto convent primary school, Kilkenny, Our Lady’s Bower, Athlone (1915–19) and UCC (1919–23), graduating BA and B.Comm.
A founder member (1945) of the revived Kilkenny Archaeological Society, she served as honorary secretary for many years and subsequently as the Society’s president (1972–6; 1995). She was the key figure in the purchase (1962) and restoration of Rothe House (a Tudor merchant’s house) in Kilkenny, which was open to the public from 1966 and became the Society’s headquarters. In the 1960s she undertook fund-raising lecture tours in the United States and Britain and until her death was the primary fund-raiser for the Society, spearheading the restoration of the third house at Rothe House in the 1990s. She wrote extensively on Kilkenny families and local history. She contributed articles to the Old Kilkenny Review, the Butler Society Journal and the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (publishing in the latter in 1996 her seminal paper on passion symbols). She was especially interested in the genealogical connections between members of Kilkenny’s old civic families. She was a founder member of the Butler Society, at the invitation of Hubert Butler, who had been associated with her in the revival of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, and she served as vice-president (1972–7) of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland.
Margaret Phelan married (September 1925) William J. Phelan of Cashel, whom she had met on an outing to the rock of Cashel; he was county surgeon for Kilkenny and a relative of her father’s first wife. They lived at the Central Hospital, Kilkenny, and subsequently at the County Hospital and Talbot’s Inch. They had four daughters and a son. After her husband’s death (1963), she lived at 10 College Road, Kilkenny. She was lady captain (1931) of Kilkenny Golf Club and its first elected lady president (1993–4).
In recognition of her services to Kilkenny Margaret Phelan was conferred with the freedom of the city in 1987. A festschrift, Kilkenny. Studies in honour of Margaret M. Phelan, edited by John Kirwan, was published by the Kilkenny Archaeological Society in 1997. After a brief illness, she died 24 February 2000 at St Luke’s Hospital, Kilkenny, and was accorded a civic funeral.