Life
1862-1953 [Margaret (Mary); var. Mary Anne; née Drummond]; b. Manchester; ed. University
College, London in Celtic literature; mbr. of Belfast Gaelic League Exec.; lect. at Ard-Scoil Uladh, Belfast; later appt. to QUB Senate; converted to Catholicism, 1902; met Patrick Pearse and conducted friendly correspondence; supported St. Enda's; issued The Tain (1907), a verse-translation, commenced in c.1897, which became a great success at St. Enda’s, where she made the first of many visits in April 1909; appt. Margaret
Stokes memorial Lecturer, 1909; moved to Dublin on death of her husband in 1912. DUB
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Works
The Tain: An Irish Epic told in English Verse (Dublin: Maunsel
& Co. 1907; rep. 1908); Do. [another edn.] (Dublin: Talbot
[1924]), ill. incl. appendixes of place-names, names of people, tribes
and animals, and Gaelic terms.
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References
A. A. Kelly ed., Pillars of the House (Dublin: Wolfhound
Press 1988), gives selection.
Ulster Libraries: Belfast Linen Hall Library holds The Tain, Irish epic in English verse (1907). Library of Herbert Bell, Belfast, holds The Tain, Irish epic in English verse (1907), 4o.
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Notes
St. Enda’s (Patrick Pearse’s school): Mary Hutton’ s ‘juvenile verse translation of the Táin; she ‘visited St Enda’s for the first time in April 1909 and her edition of the Tain was enormously popular at the school’. (See Elaine Sisson, Pearse’s Patriots: St. Enda’s and the Cult of Boyhood, Dublin: Four Court’s Press 2004, p.93.)
Ernie O’Malley was reading her book while the Public Records wing burned during the Republican occupation of the Four Courts in 1922, having been ignited by his company, as recorded in his autobiography, The Singing Flame [rep. edn.] (Anvil 1978).
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