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Maureen Charlton

Irish playwright, poet and broadcaster

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ88088206 ↗
Source-derived summary

Maureen Charlton (14 September 1930 – 10 August 2007) was an Irish playwright, poet and broadcaster.

Early life

Maureen Charlton was born Mary Farrell on 14 September 1930 in Dublin. She was one of three daughters of Edward and Bridget Farrell (or O'Farrell). She grew up in Mount Merrion, attending Loreto College, St Stephen's Green. Along with her younger sister Nuala, she studied arts in University College Dublin (UCD) where they were both active members of the Dramatic Society. Under the name Mairín O'Farrell, she starred as Pegeen Mike in The Playboy of the Western World as part of an inter-varsity drama festival in Cambridge and Oxford in 1950.

Career

Collaborating with her sister Nuala, Charlton wrote an adaptation of Synge's Playboy as a ballad opera called The heart's a wonder. It was performed in UCD's Aula Maxima in November 1957, after they had graduated. In August 1958, it was performed professionally at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin. The orchestral arrangements was by Gerard Victory, costumes and sets were by Micheál Mac Liammóir, with Milo O'Shea and Joe Lynch starring in the production.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Maureen Charlton” as irish playwright, poet and broadcaster. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1930, 2007, 1950, 1957—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1930-09-14. The account is most persuasive where Maureen, Charlton and Irish can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as irish playwright, poet and broadcaster. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q88088206. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1930, 2007, 1950 and 1957.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. 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

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Maureen Charlton”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Maureen Charlton primary sources, Maureen Charlton archive and Maureen 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

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Maureen Charlton”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Maureen Charlton” 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.