THE Ulster History Circle have commemorated Maighréad Nic Mhaicín (1899-1983), Irish speaker, translator, writer and scholar of Russian with a blue plaque on International Women’s Day. The plaque was unveiled by two head pupils at St Dominic’s Grammar School on the Falls Road.
Maighréad Nic Mhaicín was born in Dungloe Co Donegal on 12th March 1899, the third child of nine born to Margaret and John Macken, who was a member of the RIC. The family moved to Ballymena and then Belfast where they lived at Leeson Street and Hawthorne Street. Maighréad left school at the age of 13 to work in a local blouse factory. She was later awarded a scholarship to attend St Dominic’s, and was working in a mill on a Friday and back sitting in a classroom on a Monday. She was an outstanding student, achieving a first class exhibition in her senior grade and coming first in Ireland in English composition in 1916. She graduated from Queen’s University Belfast with a First-Class Honours Degree in Celtic Studies and French in 1920 and won a scholarship to study an MA in French and Celtic Philology at the Sorbonne. It was while in Paris that she first learnt Russian.
Maighréád Nic Mhaicín, also known as Daisy, lived in interesting times through the sinking of the Titanic, the First World War, the Easter Rising and the War of Independence and Civil War in Ireland. Events touched her personally. Her brother Bernard died shortly after being released from Frongoch internment camp; another brother Charlie died during the Influenza epidemic in 1918.
Maighréad was a fluent speaker of French, German, Russian and was a renowned Irish speaker. As well as studying Irish at school she spent time in the Donegal Gaeltacht staying in Rannafast in the house of the renowned seanchaí Johnny Shéamaisín. Her translations of Russian literature into Irish include Chekov’s play The Cherry Orchard An Silín-Ghort (1935); a selection of his short stories Gearr-Scéalta Cuid 1; and, a selection of Turgenev’s short stories Scéalta Sealgaire. She also translated works in English and French to Irish.
Maighréád’s graduation in 1920. Image with kind permission of Lara Kelly
Maighréad travelled to the USSR on two occasions in 1932 and 1936 and worked there as a translator. She married an Irishman Patrick Breslin, also a translator, in Moscow but returned to Ireland in 1937 to give birth to a daughter, Máiréad. She was refused permission to return to Moscow and Patrick was refused permission to leave the USSR. Tragically, he died in a Gulag in Kazan in 1942. It was many years later before Maighréad found out what had happened to him.
She settled in Dublin and was a co-founder of the Department of Russian at Trinity College and lectured there until her retirement in 1969.
Chris Spurr, Chair of UHC said: "Maighréad Nic Mhaicín is an inspiration as someone who overcame many obstacles to achieve excellence as a scholar, a writer and translator.
Two St Dominic’s Head Pupils unveiling the plaque
"Almost 125 years since her birth in Co Donegal, the Ulster History Circle is delighted on International Women’s Day to commemorate her achievements with a blue plaque at her former school in Belfast. The Circle is particularly grateful to Foras na Gaeilge for their financial support towards the plaque, to the principal and St Dominic’s Grammar School for their kind assistance and to Professor Fionntán de Brún of Maynooth University for his support and advice."
