Ireland is famous for its writers, poets, artists, sculptors and musicians. They come from every county on the island. In this Literary Trail Through Ireland, Mary Angland looks at just some of the gifted people we have been, and still are, blessed with.

 

While some people may not have heard of playwright, writer and broadcaster Máiréad Ní Ghráda, Leaving Certificate students from the early nineties up to the present day are certainly no strangers to her work, the play An Triall being a staple of the Leaving Cert Irish curriculum since the beginning of this century.

Máiréad Ní Ghráda was born in Kilmaille, the semi-Gaeltacht area west of Ennis in County Clare in December 1896. She was strongly influenced by her father, a native Irish speaker, and a farmer who had also briefly served as a local councillor. The O’Gráda house was both an Irish speaking household and a political one with many nationalists finding refuge there before the emergence of the Irish Free State in 1922.

A bright student, she received her secondary education at the Convent of Mercy in nearby Ennis before winning a scholarship to University College, Dublin where she read Irish, graduating with a BA in 1919 and afterwards with an MA in Irish.

Coming from a political family, it’s no surprise that she was involved in the political events in the turbulent years between 1916 and 1923. She was a member of Cumann na mBan and was imprisoned for selling a flag.

She supported the Free State during the Civil War, but was deeply affected by the tragic conflict. This is evident from most of the short stories she went on to write and from Breithiúnas, her last major play written in 1968.

Interestingly, after the ending of the Civil War, she was secretary to government minister Ernest Blythe for a period.

During her student years, with a number of others, she founded An Comhar Dramaíochta whose aim was to regularly produce Irish language plays. Her first play ‘Uacht’ was produced by none other than Michéal Mac Liammóir at the Abbey Theatre in 1931.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own