The Breathnach/Ní Mhurchú biography at ainm.ie contains copious detail, all in Gaelic. Over previous weeks I have picked away at this. Rather than parse it out word for word, I am going to improvise, in my own words, an English summary.

The great singer's parents, Michael Scully and Mary née Kavanagh, were not Dubliners, though they were married in the city and their two older children were born there. Miss Kavanagh was a Co. Wicklow native. Mr. Scully, who was old enough to be his wife's father, is said to be a Co. Kildare native, although information about him is extremely scarce.

The Scullys raised their children -- three or four of them, depending on your source -- largely in their mother's native county Wicklow. Tellingly, when the singer Máire Ní Scolaí died, she is said to have been buried in co. Wicklow.

The father, and the two sons, disappear from view quickly; no one gives the father's death date or where he was interred.

It was as a teenager that, somehow, Mary Anne Gabriel Scully, eventually re-named Máire Ní Scolaí, made her way to Dublin. She was fourteen when her singing teacher entered her in competitions, probably the minimum age for eligibility, and it is said, the youngest contestant. She proceed to sweep everything, winning one prize after another. Her teacher is said to have been a woman whose husband was a professional baritone. The name might be Gallagher, or its Gaelic/Erse ancestor.

There follows a period of time when the capitol city is the young musician's homebase; she is studying as well as performing. The ainm.ie account states in one sentence that she had the equivalency, in some respect, of a Royal Academy music diploma. One of the things she did learn, at some point, was how to direct/conduct a chorus of singers. She also began studies of traditional Irish dance.

Her adult home, during much of her career and all her retirement years, however, was Galway, where she was a popular favorite. I don't know if it was in Galway or Dublin that she married, not certain. She and her husband, however, became Galway fixtures. Her sister Mona Theresa often lived and worked with her; and with another woman, a non-relative, they would perform as a vocal trio on occasion. Their widowed mother -- again, we don't know when Mary Kavanagh Scully became a widow -- joined them, and this latter died in Galway, living with her daughter. In time, the sister would marry, and she and her husband would relocate to Dublin.

Touring as part of a company, performing traditional music, was part of Máire Ní Scolaí's curriculum vitae, and she both danced and sang on these tours.