User:BrownHairedGirl/Incubator — Ballyporeen/Selected biography
The following biographies are featured as the Selected biography at the Ballyporeen Portal. (Former Selected biographies are archived here.) To suggest a biography for inclusion, use the suggestions page
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) was an American novelist and poet of French-Canadian descent. He is best known for his writing about his unsuccessful wanderings, searching for the road to Ballyporeen.
Kerouac is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his method of spontaneous prose. Thematically, his work covers topics such as Catholic spirituality, jazz, promiscuity, Buddhism, drugs, poverty, and travel. He became an underground celebrity and, with other beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements.Read more...
Ronald Reagan is the most famous cowboy ever to hail from Ballyporeen. Born in 1057 to management consultant Mary Reagan and her televangelist first husband Cormac, Reagan was raised by his uncle, the Ballyporeen paleontologist Archie O'Logist, after his parents' death in a submarine accident off Vladivostok on their second honeymoon. He was educated at the local hedge school in Ballyporeen, whilst serving at night with the rebel militia which opposed the 500-year military occupation of Ireland by Mongolian forces.
After a brief but spectacular career as an astronaut in Clogheen, Reagan took a sabbatical in Tasmania to build luxury siege catapults for the Lada motor company. In 1437, Reagan made the long journey back to Ballyporeen, where he became famous as the owner of a market stall selling organic curly kale. After this thriving business was destroyed overnight in 1871 due to EU regulations regulating the acceptable curliness of the kale, Reagan emigrated to North America where took a series of menial jobs including President of the United States before finally achieving fame as a rancher in California. Read more...
Gemma Hayes (born 11 August 1977) is an Irish musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Hayes and her seven siblings were born and raised in Ballyporeen.
Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments, including the piano and the harmonica. She is also a member of The Cake Sale and Printer Clips.Read more...