Elizabeth Hickey

Elizabeth Hickey (1917 – 1999) was a well-known Meath historian and author who lived at Skryne Castle near Tara. The doyenne and best known of Meath historians, she wrote on a variety of topics. According to the Irish Times, she typified the immense contribution of local historians to Irish history, "through her long and rewarding passion for the rich history of Co Meath, producing valuable books, articles and insights."

She was born in Edinburgh in 1917 as Elizabeth Agnes Malet-Warden very much as a scion of the twilight years of the British Empire. Her mother, Agnes Helen née Pennycuick, was the daughter of a civil servant in Ceylon, and the granddaughter of Brigadier-General John Pennycuick, and her father, Edward C Malet-Warden, was an Engineer-Captain in the Royal Navy, with a particular enthusiasm for naval history, while her brother, John Hamish, was later killed in the RAF while on a bombing raid over Cologne in 1941. She was educated at the Nairn Academy, near Inverness in Scotland, and later she qualified with a degree in English and History from Trinity College, Dublin. She then went on to do dress design and later worked for a year in that capacity at the Gate Theatre in Dublin.

In 1941 she married Noel Sydney Falkiner Hickey, the younger son of R. S. Hickey of Hyde Park, Killucan, and had five children (Robin, Peter, Eoin – of Lucan, the former proprietor of Finnstown House Hotel -, Netta and Caroline) although they later separated with Noel living in London and her staying in the castle at Skryne Co. Meath. It was when she went to live in that old castle overlooking Tara that she really started to take a great interest in archaeology and local history. As part of this she did two years studying archaeology with Professor Sean P O'Riordain at University College Dublin.

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