Máire Bean Uí Shé

I first had the pleasure of meeting Máire Bean Uí Shé in 2007 at her home on the waterfront in Waterville. She was born in 1913 and after after a period of training she taught in her local parish in Glenmore National School from 1933 until its closure in 1977. Her early days of teaching coincided with ‘The National Schools Folklore Project’ that was initiated between 1935 and 1938. She was a lady who new her Parish and her pupils and she enthusiastically engaged with the project. A large collection of song, folklore, local custom and local lore was gathered and submitted to the department. She attached a note with the submission requesting that ‘as the children had worked so hard on this project would the Department of folklore see there way in sending some ‘milseáin’ back this direction’.

Maire and her pupils interest in the lore and history of the area never waned and each year they entered the ‘folklore section in the Feis Iveragh programme’. I spent many a morning with Máire and her sister Bríd, over an extended period in her house on the front in Waterville discussing and gaining knowledge on the material she had collected over half a century before. The topics discussed were varied an included song, local musicians, War of Independance and the Civil War, Landlords and hedge schools. She was very kind with her knowledge and gave a lot of material to the Binneas collection and I am forever grateful.

A lot of the handwritten material that she donated requires further work on my to make it available in a presentable form. There were a number of cassette tapes in her collection that she allowed me to copy which are available in the links below. She produced two books in Irish with English translation from her collection.

An Interview with Máire Bean Uí Shé - Interviewer (Unidentified)

The Scoil an Gleann Mór Recordings ‘Amhrán agus Ceol’