Just reading about Sophie Peirce's life can be exhausting. Born in Newcastle West, Co Limerick in 1896, she spent part of her twenties running her husband's Kenyan coffee plantation, patrolling it on her Harley Davidson motorbike (surely a rare sight in those days), and writing and publishing poetry.
At the same time, she was also studying agriculture in Dublin, and competing in international athletics. She held the women's British javelin record and the world high jump record (four feet 11 inches, since you ask, in 1923), helped found the Women's Amateur Athletics Association (becoming its first vice-president), and in 1925 argued successfully for women to be admitted to Olympic track events.
But that's just the start of it - because it was only then that Sophie Peirce discovered the love of her life: flying. A chance conversation on a plane journey prompted her to take flying lessons, and within months she had a pilot's licence. This woman was born to fly, and she now turned to stunt work to earn a living, becoming the first woman to loop the loop and to make a parachute jump from 1,500 feet.
Within months, she had also become the first woman in Britain to hold a commercial pilot's licence - at a time when, to carry passengers, a pilot had to prove he was male.
Well, such a ban on women was like a red rag to the bullish Sophie, who fervently believed flying was one area where men and women could be equals. It hadn't taken her long to force the International Olympic Council to rescind its ban on women athletes, and the ban on commercial women pilots fell just as quickly.
By now, "the flying Irishwoman" was a celebrity, touring the world, and fêted wherever she went. Sophie Peirce endorsed products, wrote accounts of her achievements for newspapers, lectured to flying clubs, flew in races everywhere - and moved on to husband No 2, a wealthy industrialist, Sir James Heath.
In 1928, with Heath's backing, she undertook her greatest feat: flying solo from South Africa to London. Her aim was to promote the need for better air services within Africa, and between Africa and Britain (these were still colonial times), so Lady Mary Heath (as she now was) took three months to complete the journey, stopping at every possible little airfield, and doing all her own maintenance on route.
Next she worked as a pilot for KLM, did stunt and exhibition flying work, made a talkie movie for US flying clubs, and ran up serious debts in England, prompting her to move to the US. By 1932, this pioneering and unconventional woman was on husband No 3, fellow aviator George Williams. Their honeymoon was a "flying visit" to Mexico, where the president put a military plane at their disposal.
Living such a packed life before she was 40 may explain why she seemed to need several identities: she was Catherine to her family, Sophie Peirce in Newcastle West, and Mrs Elliott-Lynn in athletic circles; but to flying fans the world over she would always be Lady Mary Heath.
By 1934, however, she was suffering the after-effects of her one serious flying accident, a crash that had left her unconscious for three weeks. And so she and Williams returned to, of all places, the small Dublin village of Finglas. There, at Kildonan aerodrome, they ran a flying school and started a business, Dublin Air Ferries.
Kildonan, established in 1931 by a far-seeing local businessman, Hugh Cahill, was Ireland's first civilian airport (Baldonnel belonged to the army, and Collinstown, later to become Dublin Airport, was not opened until 1936). The Finglas airfield ran everything from air shows and "joy rides" to emergency air ambulance services and a pilots' school. But the establishment of Aer Lingus in 1936 meant its days were numbered; in 1938 Dublin Air Ferries went out of business, and with it Kildonan aerodrome.
Amazingly, the flying fields survive amid the subarban scrawl. And to celebrate, Kildonan aerodrome now has its own history: a fine new book, 12 years in the making, and a labour of love for author John Haughton.
The Silver Lining: Kildonan, The Golden Age of Flying, takes its title from Lady Mary Heath's favourite aircraft, and much of the book is about this great Irish aviator. But readers will also learn about the history of flying in Ireland, about Finglas's flying Father Furlong and his flying dog, Bruno, about the flying nun, and about the caretakers and cooks at Kildonan, the mechanics and the aerial photographers, and the early flying buffs.
The volume is richly illustrated with archive material, and packed with information about the various aircraft of the time. It should appeal to anyone interested in Irish aviation and aeroclubs, or in the history of Finglas village. Published by the Finglas Environment Heritage Project, the book coincides nicely with this year's centenary of the Wright brothers' historic flight. It is available in bookshops at €30, or direct from the author (tel: 01 832 5415).
Meanwhile, what of Sophie Pierce? Sadly, her own silver lining had several clouds: marriage No 3 ended in divorce, and her later years were blighted by a drink problem. In 1939, she fell down the stairs of a London tram and died shortly after from her injuries. She was just 43.
Yet Sophie Peirce had the last laugh. At her own request, her ashes were scattered from a plane over Newcastle West - just when her neighbour, a man she never got on with, was taking his midday walk.