Maire O'Neill

Number 40 Middle Abbey Street in Dublin was the birthplace of Maire O'Neill, the actress who first brought Pegeen Mike Flaherty to life on stage. She was born Mary Agnes Allgood in 1886, the daughter of a stern Protestant compositor and a strict Catholic mother, and she left that household for an orphanage after her father died. The house did not ask her to become famous, but it gave birth to the woman who would later refuse to remain small.