Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin

Dr Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin (15 May 1955 – 14 April 2015) was an Irish academic and activist. She was a historian of Early Irish literature, history, and genealogy, with particular interest in Irish women.

Early life Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin grew up in an Irish-speaking household in Salthill, Galway City. Her father, Cilian Ó Brolcháin (1905-1976), was professor of physics at UCG (now University of Galway), and her mother Mairéad (Coughlan) was a former domestic science teacher from Macroom, County Cork. Raised in a musical family, she carried on her various creative interests throughout her youth. There, she went on to help establish the Maynooth University Centre for Irish Cultural Heritage,

In 2009 Ní Bhrolcháin published the book Introduction to Early Irish Literature, which drew together much of her research on Old Irish and Middle Irish texts. Her papers were published in many academic journals over her career, including Éigse, Ériu, Léachtaí Cholm Cille, Seanchas Ard Mhacha: journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society and ULIDIA. (which eventually opened in 2010), arguing for its preservation as a monument of Irish cultural heritage. In 2005 she coordinated a statement to the government signed by 350 academics.

As a Labour Party activist she was involved in many of its campaigns. She was party’s Irish language spokesperson for both Ireland's divorce referendums in 1986 and 1995. In 1996, at the request of Michael D. Higgins (then Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht), she chaired a commission on the role of Irish-language voluntary organisations, whose report eventually contributed to the development of the Official Languages Act 2003.

Fiction writing Ní Bhrolcháin also wrote fiction in Irish, including young adult fiction books An bád sa chuan (1990), Ar ais arís (1991), Eachtraí samhraidh (1992), Dialann Chaoimhe (1994) and An solas sa chaisleán (1994), as well scripts for the TV series Ros na Rún. She was survived by her partner, two daughters and granddaughter.