Máire Mhac an tSaoi

Máire Mhac an tSaoi (born 1922, Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish language scholar and academic. Mhac an tSaoi was born Máire MacEntee in Dublin. Her father, Seán MacEntee, was one of the founding members of Fianna Fáil, a long-serving TD and Tánaiste in the Dáil and a participant in the Easter Rising of 1916. Her mother, Tipperary-born, Margaret de Brún, was a teacher at Alexandra College, was also an Irish republican. Her uncle, Monsignor Pádraig de... more

Máire Mhac an tSaoi (born 1922, Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish language scholar and academic. Mhac an tSaoi was born Máire MacEntee in Dublin. Her father, Seán MacEntee, was one of the founding members of Fianna Fáil, a long-serving TD and Tánaiste in the Dáil and a participant in the Easter Rising of 1916. Her mother, Tipperary-born, Margaret de Brún, was a teacher at Alexandra College, was also an Irish republican. Her uncle, Monsignor Pádraig de Brún, was one of the most respected scholars of the Irish language in the twentieth century. Another uncle was the conservative prelate Michael Cardinal Browne. Her husband Conor Cruise O'Brien who is now deceased was five years her senior and a divorcé. Mhac an tSaoi and O'Brien were married in a Catholic ceremony in 1962; they adopted two children, Patrick and Margaret. Mhac an tSaoi has had a lifelong passion for the Irish language and she is today one of the leading authorities on Munster Irish. She is a prolific writer in Irish. As a... less