Máire Bhuí Ní Laoghaire

Máire Bhuí Ní Laoghaire (1774–1849) was an Irish poet.

Laoghaire was born in Túirín na nÉan in Uibh Laoghaire (Iveleary), near Ballingeary, County Cork. In 1792, she married Séamus de Búrca, a Skibbereen horsetrader and the couple settled on a holding they purchased near Céim an Fhia/Keimaneigh, living in some prosperity.

Career

She was illiterate but her songs and poems survived via the oral folk tradition of the area, as did compositions by her contemporaries such as Antoine Ó Raifteiri.

Her best-known composition is Cath Chéim an Fhia (The Battle of Keimaneigh), which graphically records a fight between the local yeoman militia and the Whiteboys in 1822.

References

Oxford Concise Companion to Irish Literature, Robert Welsh, 1996. ISBN 0-19-280080-9