Sarah Purser

Kingstown, now Dún Laoghaire, birthplace of Sarah Purser in 1848, launched the woman who would become the first female full member of the Royal Hibernian Academy. She turned painter after her father's flour mill failed in 1873, studied at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art and the Académie Julian, then spent fifty years exhibiting portraits and hosting Dublin's writers on Tuesdays at Mespil House. She also founded and funded An Túr Gloine, bringing stained glass back into Irish making. A miller's daughter from the shore became one of the city's shaping hands.