Clodagh Finn: Remember Mary Ward’s life as well as her record-setting death

It would be such a mistake to remember Mary Ward only as the first road death; she was an artist, a naturalist, an astronomer and 'Ireland’s first lady of the microscope'

Mary Ward was the first person in the world to be killed by a car, and it happened here in Ireland. On August 31, 1869, in Birr, Co Offaly, Ms Ward was thrown from a car while travelling with her cousins. She was killed instantly. Picture: RSA.ie

The new Vision Zero road-safety campaign starts with a question: “Who was Mary Ward?”

To start, she was an artist who illustrated a biography of Sir Isaac Newton, a naturalist, an astronomer and “Ireland’s first lady of the microscope”, to quote one description.