Máirin de Valéra

Máirin de Valéra was born in Dublin on 12 April 1912, the eldest daughter of seven children in a household where political ambition and classroom discipline collided. She left that intensity behind to chase slippery green life along the western seaboard, mapping algae that others dismissed as mere weeds. When war cut global supply lines, her fieldwork became practical magic, turning coastal marshes into sources of agar for medicine and industry. She carried that hidden knowledge into University College Galway, becoming its first chair and professor of Botany while teaching every course in two languages.