User:Twilson r/Sandbox/Noelle Campbell-Sharp

Noelle Campbell-Sharp (born 1943, County Wexford) is an Irish artistic promoter, gallerist and philanthropist, formerly a publisher of multiple Irish magazine titles. She operates an art gallery in Dublin and leads the Cill Rialaig project in County Kerry, and has been a member of the Arts Council of Ireland.

Life
Campbell-Sharp was born in 1943 in Wexford, and was given away at birth, with 100 pounds to be fostered as a Catholic, and then adopted by the Roche family, growing up in County Wexford. She has described how her mother had run away to Northern Ireland, became pregnant 20 with an American partner, and later built a career in a medical field the UK. She did research her birth background, and while her mother died before they could meet, she is acquainted with a half-brother and two half-sisters, and other blood relatives.

Roche acquired a love of history and military matters from her father, and went on to collect Napoleon memorabilia. She left school at the age of 15, after taking her Intermediate Certificate.

Early career
Roche secured an invoice clerk-typist job with a foundry and agricultural machinery company, Pierce's, in Wexford. She moved to Dublin, attended the Brendan Smith Academy of Acting and acted with the Young Dublin Players, and based on that, secured a role as a Public Relations Officer for the Gaiety Theatre, with her first client being Peter O'Toole.

After her marriage to British fashion photographer Neil Campbell-Sharp, she began to write text to go with his work, and became involved with fashion journalism.

Publishing
Campbell-Sharp began to work with Irish Tatler magazine, buying it out in 1979, in partnership with Kilkenny People editor, John Kerry Keane. She shortened Irish Tatler's working title to IT, and edited it until 1988. She also purchased a number of other titles, publishing 11 at one point, including Social and Personal, which she later sold to Michael Smurfit's Smurfit Publishing, and Success. She also published Ryanair's in-flight magazine for some years. She sold her magazine business to Robert Maxwell in 1991 for some money up-front, and some as shares, with 49% to be paid over five years. His death, and the unravelling of his business, left her without the balance of the sale price, a loss she estimated at 10 million Irish pounds. Her partner at that time, musician Niall McGuinness, died about a year later, aged 39.

With her main residence in Killiney, she later purchased a property in the coastal area of Ballinskelligs in County Kerry, having it renovated under architect Alfred Cochrane. She was very active on the Dublin social scene, and became friends with Terry Keane. She took a number of legal actions over reporting, being awarded 70,000 euro and costs in one case in 1997, for example. She also sought election to the board of directors of Bank of Ireland in 1992, and experimented with music promotion, in 1995.

Cill Rialaig Project
Having heard of a risk of a road widening project destroying famine village remnants at Cill Rialaig in Ballinskelligs, she organised fund-raising with some local and Dublin-based friends, and a small grant from the Irish National Lottery, purchased the ruins, and commenced what grew into the multi-part Cill Rialaig Project, an Artist Retreat and nearby Arts Centre. She later sold her Killiney house and made Ballinskelligs her main base, and she continued as the driving force of this project, which has hosted almost 5,000 residencies as of 2019.

Campbell-Sharp launched her first gallery, on St. Stephen's Green, dedicated to work from Cill Rialaig - this was opened by the Tánaiste Dick Spring, with the Ambassador of the US, Jean Kennedy Smith in attendance. This was followed by the Origins Gallery, which had to move at one point due to tramline works, and which is being reworked in 2019. For a time, from 2006 to the early 2010s, Campbell-Sharp also operated the Urban Retreat gallery on Hanover Quay, by Grand Canal Dock. focused on Cill Rialaig's output and artists.

Recognition
Received an honorary doctorate from Maynooth University,

Personal life
Campbell-Sharp has one daughter with Neil Campbell-Sharp, and three grandchildren.