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Barbara McDonnell

Irish philanthropist

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ55965141
Source-derived summary

Barbara McDonnell (1847?–1928) was an Irish philanthropist.

Life

Barbara Montgomery McDonnell was born around 1847 in Dublin. She was the youngest daughter of a prominent surgeon, John MacDonnell, and Charity MacDonnell (née Dobbs). She had three sisters and six brothers. Two of her brothers were Robert McDonnell and Alexander McDonnell. Her paternal grandfather was James MacDonnell, and her uncle was Sir Alexander Macdonnell. Her maternal great-great-grandfather was Arthur Dobbs. McDonnell's early life was spent in Dublin, but then the family moved to Cushendall, County Antrim around 1885. Her elder sisters, Rose Emily McDonnell and Catherine Anne Stewart McDonnell, founded a cottage hospital in Cushendall in August 1885. The hospital eventually became part of the National Health Service.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Barbara McDonnell” as irish philanthropist. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1847, 1928, 1885—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1847. The account is most persuasive where Barbara, McDonnell and Irish can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as irish philanthropist. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q55965141. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1847, 1928 and 1885.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Barbara McDonnell”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Barbara McDonnell primary sources, Barbara McDonnell archive and Barbara research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Barbara McDonnell” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.