Gifford sisters

The Gifford sisters were, save for one (Ada), prominent republicans during the Irish revolutionary period who were daughters of Frederick and Isabella Gifford, middle-class Dublin unionists. Two were married to signatories of the 1916 Proclamation.

Family background
Frederick Gifford (1835/36–1917), a Catholic solicitor, married Isabella Julia Burton (1847/48–1932), daughter of a rector in the Church of Ireland, on 27 April 1872, in St. George's Church of Ireland church in Dublin. Isabella's father, Robert Nathaniel Burton, died in her infancy, after which she and her siblings were raised by their uncle, the painter Frederic William Burton. From the 1880s, the Giffords lived on Palmerston Road in Rathmines. After a first child who died in infancy, there were six daughters and six sons. The sons (Claude Frederick, Liebert, Gerald Vere, Gabriel Paul, Frederick Ernest, and Edward Cecil), though nominally baptised as Catholics (their father's religion), remained unionist and pursued unspectacular careers outside Ireland.

The girls were educated at Alexandra College. The children were raised as Protestants, though in adulthood four sisters converted to Catholicism (Katie, Muriel, Grace, and Sidney, all having married Catholics). All the sisters, except for one (Ada), were prominent republicans.