Ní Chinnéide soon became interested in writing children's plays, including "Gleann na Sidheóg" (1905) and "Sidheoga na mBláth" (1909). She was president of the Gaelic Players Dramatic group during the 1930s and a founder of the Gaelic Writers Association in 1939. She was a broadcaster in Irish on 2RN/Radio Éireann after its foundation in 1926 and author of a translation of Grimms' Fairy Tales (1923). She was later author of children's plays staged by An Comhar Drámuidhachta at the Oireachtas and the Peacock Theatre, of which Gleann na Sidheóg and An Dúthchas (1908) were published. Máire had an acting part in the first modern play performed in Irish on the stage, Casadh an tSugáin by Douglas Hyde in 1901. Peig became well known as a prescribed text on the Leaving Certificate curriculum in Irish. She then edited the manuscript for the Talbot Press. Máire Ní Chinnéide suggested Peig should dictate her memoir to her son Micheal, known to everyone on the island as An File ("The Poet"), but Peig "only shook her head doubtfully." At Christmas, a packet arrived from the Blaskets with a manuscript, Máire transcribed it word for word and in summer brought it back to the Blaskets to read it to Peig. Peig answered that she had "nothing to write." She had learned only to read and write in English at school and most of it was forgotten. "she knew and admired her gift for easy conversation, her gracious charm as a hostess, her talent for illustrating a point she was making by a story out of her own experience that was as rich in philosophy and thought as it was limited geographically." According to a later interview with Ní Chinnéide In the summer of 1934, Máire Bean Nic Gearailt as she was then, who had known Peig Sayers, put the idea into the old woman's head to write a memoir. Máire first visited the Blasket Islands in 1932 with her daughter Niamh, who was to die tragically young. She was active in Cumann na mBan during the Irish War of Independence and took the pro-treaty side during the civil war and attempted to set up a woman's organisation "in support of the Free State" alongside Jennie Wyse Power. Máire later served as Vice-President of Craobh an Chéitinnigh, to Cathal Brugha. "all existing games were passed in review, but it was felt from the first that Hurling was the model on which the new game should be formed.” Initial matches were played on the grounds of Mr O’Dowd in Drumcondra Park, but “the place was not very suitable and players did not join in any numbers until the Keating Camoguidhthe betook themselves to the Phoenix Park, where they have a convenient ground well off the main road." Gaelic League She was on the first camogie team to play an exhibition match in Navan in July 1904, became an early propagandist for the game and, in 1905 was elected president of the infant Camogie Association. Máire Ní Chinnéide and Cáit Ní Dhonnchadha (like Ní Chinnéide, an Irish-language enthusiast and cultural nationalist), were credited with having created the game, with the assistance of Ní Dhonnchadha's scholarly brother Tadhg Ó Donnchadha, who drew up its rules. Camogie had come to public attention when it was showcased at the annual Oireachtas (Gaelic League Festival) earlier that year, and it differed from men's hurling in its use of a lighter ball and a smaller playing-field. In August 1904, some six years after the establishment of the earliest women's hurling teams, the rules of camogie (then called camoguidheacht), first appeared in Banba, a journal produced by Craobh an Chéitinnigh. She was a founder member of the radical Craobh an Chéitinnigh, the Keating branch of the Gaelic League (Conradh na Gaelige), composed mainly of Dublin-based Kerry people and regarded, by themselves at least, as the intellectual focus of the League. She spent the last £100 of her scholarship on a dowry for her marriage to Sean MacGearailt, later first Accountant General of Revenue in the Irish civil service, with whom she lived originally in Glasnevin and then in Dalkey. She later taught Latin through Irish at Ballingeary and became proficient in French, German, Italian and Spanish. ![]() She studied in the school of Old Irish established by professor Osborn Bergin and was strongly influenced by the Irish-Australian professor O'Daly. Máire learned Irish on holiday in Ballyvourney and earned the first scholarship in Irish from the Royal University, worth £100 a year, which was spent on visits to the Irish college in Ballingeary. ![]() Máire was born in Rathmines in 1879 and attended Muckross Park College and Royal University (later the NUI) where she was a classmate of Agnes O'Farrelly, Helena Concannon, and Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington. Máire Ní Chinnéide (English Mary or Molly O'Kennedy ) (17 January 1879 – ) was an Irish language activist, playwright, first President of the Camogie Association and first woman president of Oireachtas na Gaeilge.
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