Born: 2 May 1875, Ireland
Died: 27 January 1952
Country most active: Ireland, United Kingdom
Also known as: Máighréad Hannigan
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Lesa Ní Mhunghaile and Shaun Boylan. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Máighréad Ní Annagáin (1875–1952), folk music collector and performer, was born 2 May 1875 in Láithreach, An Déise, Co. Waterford, the daughter of Michael Hannigan, a carpenter, and his wife Mary (née Murray). A native Irish-speaker, she came from a long tradition of musicians on both sides. She attended the Mercy Convent School in Dungarvan, Co. Waterford, and subsequently spent a period of time living and studying in France. On her return to Ireland she studied music in Cork. She trained as a classical soprano but devoted her energy to traditional Irish songs instead, many of them learned from her father. She won a singing competition at the Dungarvan Feis in 1900, and in 1901 a gold medal in the Oireachtas competition with the song ‘Éamonn an Chnoic’. From this time onwards she devoted herself to singing professionally on a full-time basis. She performed throughout Ireland and also in Scotland and England, and was regularly an adjudicator at feiseanna.
From 1901 she was in close contact with the poet Riobard Bheldon, who regularly sent her a copy of any new poem or song he thought would suit her. He composed a song on the occasion of her winning the Oireachtas competition, ‘Do Mháiréad Ní Annagáin’. He also composed ‘Do Mháiréad arís’ and ‘Máiréad agus an Londubh’. She performed on the opening night of the launch of the new radio station 2RN, but an influential critic of the time, Harold White, noted that all the performances had been satisfactory apart from Ní Annagáin’s, which he attributed to nervousness (Irish Independent, 2 Jan. 1926). Her poor performance may have been due to a strained throat, however.
She and Clandillon had three sons and two daughters; the family lived at San Salvador, Newtown Park Avenue, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. She died 27 January 1952 in the Mater Misericordiae nursing home, Eccles St., Dublin, and is buried in Glasnevin cemetery.