Máirin de Valéra

Máirin de Valéra MRIA (12 April 1912 – 8 August 1984) was an Irish phycologist. She was the first chair and professor of Botany at University College Galway.

Early life and education Máirin de Valéra was born 12 April 1912 in Dublin, the eldest daughter of seven children of Éamon de Valera and Sinéad de Valera (née Flanagan). Her father was a leading Irish politician and her mother was a primary school teacher. She was educated at Holy Faith Convent, Greystones, at Haddington Road, Dublin, and at Loreto College, St Stephen's Green, Dublin, going on to enter University College Dublin to study science. Graduating with a first-class honours degree in botany in 1935, she commenced her postgraduate research with Joseph Doyle. She completed an MSc in 1936, investigating a comparison of the conifer genera Athrotaxis and Sequoia. Travelling on a scholarship, de Valéra studied at the University of Leeds from 1936 to 1937, when her interest was drawn to marine algae, something she would pursue first at Aberystwyth University, and then at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Kristineberg, Stockholm, Sweden. She enrolled at the University of Lund in 1937, where she worked under Harald Kylin, an eminent phycologist. During this time de Valéra published a number of papers on algal morphology and physiology. She briefly visited Ireland in the summer of 1938 to collect algae in Galway Bay – she later published her findings.

Professional career Returning to Ireland in 1939 from Sweden, de Valéra became an assistant in the department of natural history at University College Galway (UCG). Being the only botanist on the staff, de Valéra taught all of the botanical courses, with the work load doubling when the lectures were offered in Irish. Upon the establishment of the chair of botany at UCG in the 1960s, de Valéra was the first to hold it, and she was the professor of botany from 1962 until her retirement in 1977, when she was appointed professor emerita at National University of Ireland. After retirement, de Valéra continued to take part in field studies, her last being for a marine field station at Finavarra, County Clare. She died suddenly at home in Galway on 8 August 1984.

Some published work De Valéra, M. 1958. A topographical guide to the seaweed of Co. Galway Bay with some brief notes on other districts on the west coast of Ireland. Institute for Industrial Standards and Research Dublin, Dublin.