Elizabeth Hickey was a 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."
Life
She was born in Edinburgh in 1917 as Elizabeth Agnes Malet-Warden. 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-Commandant 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 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. At first she wrote for The Irish Times and the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland but it was with the founding of the Meath Historical and Archaeological Society in the late '50s that she found a ready outlet for her research. She was also very interested in literature and tried her hand at fiction, writing I send my love along the Boyne in 1966. In later years, along with so many Meath historians, she tried to preserve the heritage of Co Meath from the ravages of the Irish government. She was successful though in preserving the bridge at Kilcarn, an ancient stone bridge across the Boyne located a few miles the Dublin side of Navan, although she became quite disillusioned in after years with the lack of interest in matters historical and in the problems of getting Irish history works published. Probably the most famous of her works was The Green Cockatrice, originally published under the pseudonym "Basil Iske". In this she traced the career of William Nugent, one time Baron of Skryne. She felt that he was a good candidate for the authorship of Shakespeare's works, a view that she never relented from in subsequent years. She even corresponded with Enoch Powell on the subject, another person who was sceptical of the Stratford story. Her book Skryne and the Early Normans also reflects her love of the area. She researched in detail the Monument to Sir Thomas Cusack. She died on 12 January 1999 aged 81 years, and was cremated after her funeral in Navan.
