📍Baltyboys, Blessington, County Wicklow, Ireland
1898 – 1905“I was born Edris Stannus in June 1898 at Baltyboys House, an eighteenth-century manor house near Blessington, in the hills of County Wicklow, Ireland, the second daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Stannus, an army officer, and Elizabeth, a glassmaker known as Lilith Stannus. My father had wanted a son, and when I was born there were no bells rung or bonfires lit; later, when I was scolded for some misdeed, I announced that one day I might light my own bonfire. I spent the first seven years of my life at Baltyboys, and my world was the house, the gardens and the fields of the estate, by the River Liffey. Our outings were to Sunday service in Blessington, to collect the English mail, to Blessington Fair and, sometimes, to the theatre in Dublin. From my mother I learned tenderness and creativity, and from my father focus and discipline. It was our cook, Kate, who taught me the Irish jig, and I danced it at a children's birthday party, my first public performance, and I never forgot it. In 1905 I was sent to live with my grandmother in Kent, and at ten I started ballet lessons. At thirteen I began professional training and took the name Ninette de Valois. I danced with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, and in 1931 I founded the Vic-Wells Ballet, which became the Royal Ballet, and its school. I also founded the Abbey Theatre School of Ballet in Dublin, so Ireland too would have ballet. Blessington remembers me on its heritage trail, close to the house where I first danced.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today