Comerford, Maire, 1893-1982

Mary Eva (Maire) Comerford was born on June 29, 1893, in Rathdrum, County Wicklow, Ireland, the eldest daughter of James Charles Comerford and Eva Mary (Esmonde) Comerford. As an adolescent, Comerford attended a convent school in Athlone where she was instructed in Irish history and the Irish language. Her father died when she was 16, and in 1911, she was sent to London to a secretarial school. It was there that Comerford became conscious of the Irish independence movement and began to study Irish politics in her spare time.

On her return to Ireland, Comerford settled with her mother in Wexford to help with her boarding school. She soon became involved in the United Irishwomen, an organization focused on improving the lives of rural women. After the Easter Rising in 1916, Comerford joined the Wexford branch of Sinn Féin and Cumann na mBan the following year. In 1918, she moved to Dublin, where she worked as secretary to the historian Alice Stopford Green, in whose home she met many leading nationalists. During the 1918 general election, Comerford campaigned for Sinn Féin, after which she traveled the country, organizing Cumann na mBan branches, and carrying dispatches for the IRA's (Irish Republican Army) Fourth Northern Division.

Comerford strongly opposed the 1922 Treaty. During the bombardment of the Four Courts in Dublin in June 1922, she carried dispatches between the anti-treaty forces and the IRA's Dublin brigade. Her involvement in an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap W. T. Cosgrave in January 1923 resulted in her arrest and imprisonment in Mountjoy Prison. As a prisoner, she staged protests about overcrowding and participated in a hunger strike, after which she was transferred to the North Dublin Union workhouse, from where she escaped in May 1923. Following her re-arrest, she again went on a hunger strike, and after three weeks, she was released from jail. By August 1923, Comerford recovered sufficiently to campaign for Sinn Féin during the general election in Cork. She was then sent by Éamon De Valera to the United States on a largely unsuccessful fundraising mission.

After campaigning, Comerford resettled in Wexford, where she ran a poultry farm. In 1935, she began writing for The Irish Press and editing the column, "Woman's Page". She also wrote for the IRA's journal War News during the 1930s. Comerford retired as a full-time journalist in 1964 to concentrate on researching and writing about the republican movement. In 1969, she published The First Dáil, documenting the inaugural meeting of the revolutionary parliament. Comerford also spent this time drafting her memoir, which she didn't complete before her death, but was edited and published posthumously in 2021 as On Dangerous Ground.

In her later years, Comerford remained politically active through her involvement with activist groups like the Anti-Partition League and the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA). She also campaigned for better conditions for political prisoners at Portlaoise Prison and Long Kesh during the H-Block hunger strikes in 1980-1981. Comerford died December 15, 1982, at her home in Sandyford, Dublin, and was buried at Mount Saint Benedict Abbey, County Wexford.