Work-in-Progress
Lola Montez Project
Lola Montez (1818-1861), born in Sligo, Ireland as Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, was an intriguing independent woman of her time. She is not particularly well known in Ireland, having traveled and lived an eventful, infamous life in Germany, France, Australia, India and finally America. Described by biographers in terms such as a ‘strikingly beautiful adventuress’ and a ‘Spanish’ dancer who achieved international notoriety as the mistress of King Louis I of Bavaria, she carved her independent career as an actor, dancer, lecturer, and business woman. She is also an early example of a woman with celebrity status wherever she went.
For a time she lived in California in San Francisco and Grass Valley during the Gold Rush and died in New York in 1861.
Lola Montez, By Southworth and Hawes, Daguerrotype, c.1850Lola Montez in Grass Valley, Ca
In 2019, I explored Grass Valley, in California where Lola Montez owned a house for some time in the 1850s. It was a busy time for this ‘last frontier’ in the midst of the Gold Rush and she established herself in this small community. Mount Lola Montez and Lake Lola Montez in the vicinity are named after her. Here are some research and other images from this evolving project:
Lola Montez in Sligo
Lola is claimed by some to have been born in Sligo - although she herself wrote in her biography that she was born in Limerick. The nightclub in Sligo town was called Lola’s - after Lola Montez.
