Máiréad Ní Ghráda (1896–1971)

Máiréad Ní Ghráda was born in Kilmaley, County Clare, Ireland. Her parents were Margaret and James O'Grady, a farmer and local county councillor who was a native Irish speaker. She grew up speaking both English and Irish. She won a scholarship to University College Dublin, where she earned a BA in Irish, French and English in 1918 and an MA in Irish in 1919. While there, she began publishing articles and stories in Irish in literary reviews and joined Cumann na mBanan, the Irish republican women's paramilitary organization. In 1921, during the Irish War of Independence, she was briefly jailed for selling republican flags on Grafton Street. Later she worked as a teacher at a private school, as an organizer for Conradh na Gaeilge (Gaelic League), and as personal secretary to Ernest Blythe while he was a minister in the underground Irish government. In 1923, she married Richard Kissane, a Garda officer, with whom she had two children and settled in Dublin. In 1926, she became a women and children's programmer for radio station 2RN, which went on to become Radio Éireann. She later served as the station's principal announcer, the first female announcer in Ireland and Great Britain.

She also wrote radio and stage plays, the most famous of which was An triail (On Trial, 1966). Ní Ghráda also published a broad range of textbooks, including Irish grammar and readers and an English-Irish dictionary. She became chief editor for Browne & Nolan in the early 1940s and remained in that position for many years.