Peg Plunkett

 ( 1720s Births ) 

Plunkett became head of her own household when she started her first brothel with a friend, Sally Hayes, in Drogheda Street in Dublin. Plunkett was successful in court against Richard Crosbie, the leader of a notorious gang known as the Pinking Dindies. This group of upper-class youths and failed students carried swords with which they used to mug the unfortunate. They were known for taking the "booty" from prostitutes and brothels and they continued in this practice, despite the law, for many years. Irish varieties, for the last fifty years: written from recollections, J. D. Herbert, 1836 Crosbie was sent to jail for an attack on Plunkett that ended a pregnancy and caused another of her children to die; it was said that Crosbie could have faced a murder charge.

The business had other addresses but finally occupied premises in Pitt Street (now Balfe Street, near Grafton Street). Plunkett took her exploiters to the courts on more than one occasion and she was said to enjoy local support because her business attracted customers to other nearby businesses. The rise and fall of Peg Plunkett, 18th-century courtesan and consummate memoirist, Sarah Dunant, 2 July 2015, The New Statesman, Retrieved 8 July 2015

Plunkett retired after thirty years to Blackrock. She was said to have had a secret pension from the Irish government at one point. Reviews of Peg Plunkett: Memoirs of a Whore, Stuff.co.nz, Retrieved July 2015

As her income reduced she began to write her memoirs. It is presumed that the motive was to profit by threatening to name her former lovers. She died aged 70 in 1797 The rise and fall of Peg Plunkett, 18th-century courtesan and consummate memoirist, Women's Museum of Ireland, Retrieved 8 July 2015 and her obituary was published in the Dublin Evening Post on 17 May.