Annie Massy

Annie Letitia Massy (29 January 1868 – 17 April 1931 in particular cephalopods. She was one of the founders of the Irish Society for the Protection of Birds in 1904. with no known photograph of her in existence. The family home was Stagdale Lodge close to the border of County Tipperary and County Limerick. She was the third child of four to parents Annie and Hugh Deane Massy, descendants of Hamon de Massey. Her father was a surgeon in the British Army and was probably working at the Royal Victoria military hospital in Netley at the time of Annie's birth. From then on, she became a regular contributor to the Irish Naturalist journal. She was employed on this basis until her death in 1931. This included the expeditions of HMS Helga which engaged in trawling, dredging and tow-netting.

In 1913, Massy published a paper in which she examined the commonly held belief that rings observed on oysters served to age the specimens in a similar manner to tree rings. Her examination of over 600 specimens demonstrated that there was no clear association between these rings and specimen age.

Later life and recognition

Massy died 17 April 1931 at home in Howth, County Dublin from stomach cancer after a short illness. Her death was noted in The Irish Times and in the journal Nature. as well the Natural History Museum, London.

Publications

1907 Preliminary notice of new and remarkable cephalopods from the South-west Coast of Ireland 1916 The Cephalopoda of the Indian Museum 1917 The gymnosomatous Pteropoda of the coasts of Ireland 1918 A note on Loligo media (L.) 1928 The Cephalopoda of the Irish coast 1930 Mollusca of the Irish Atlantic Slope 1932 Mollusca: Gastropoda Thecosomata and Gymnosomata