Mac Cana, Somhairle (Soirle) (1901–75), artist, was born Samuel Malachy McCann on 23 November 1901 in Grace Street, Belfast, son of J. P. McCann, cabinetmaker, and Mary Jane McCann (née Riddell). He was educated by the Christian Brothers and in 1915 was apprenticed as textile designer to Joseph Mathews Ltd, damask and linen manufacturers, Upper Queen Street, Belfast. In his spare time he attended the Belfast Academy of Art, studying embroidery design. During the war of independence he joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and was arrested in Co. Cavan in 1921. Court-martialled and sentenced to death, he spent seven months in Crumlin Road prison, Belfast, before the general amnesty. It was probably during this period that he began to use the Gaelic form of his name.
Resuming his studies at the Belfast School of Art, he won the Sorella scholarship in 1923 and began teaching the following year. The Dunville scholarship in 1925 enabled him to study for three years at the Royal College of Art, London, and also spend time in Paris. Returning to Ireland, he taught for a year in Belfast before being appointed art master at Galway technical school (1929). From Mill Street, Galway, he exhibited for the first time in the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), showing six paintings, priced around £1 and mainly executed in egg tempera. Well regarded by colleagues, he was appointed (1935) art inspector in the Department of Education, Dublin. Two years later he became principal of the Crawford Municipal School of Art, Cork. A shy man, who disliked publicity and exhibited infrequently, he showed only three more times at the RHA (1943, 1945, 1946) and each time showed only one picture. At the Oireachtas exhibitions between 1944 and 1957 he showed four times, the paintings typically priced at £15. From 1943 his work appeared under Irish titles. His interest in promoting Irish culture extended to producing a book, Irish craftsmanship (1956), about arts and crafts in Ireland from the early bronze age to his own time, and to reworking the modern Gaelic alphabet.
A figurative painter of portraits and landscapes, he worked in a variety of media, including oil and watercolour, as well as etching and engravings. Much of his work was religious, including the ‘Holy Family’, an oil painting, and ‘Nativity’, a woodcut, both in the Crawford gallery. The sculptor Desmond Broe's 3m (10ft) high ‘Coronation of Our Lady’ in Cork was designed by Mac Cana. In 1964 he completed his ‘Stations of the cross’ for Coolagown church, Castlelyons, Co. Cork. Three years later he retired as principal of the Crawford school, and died 25 November 1975 in St Stephen's hospital, Glanmire, Co. Cork. He was survived by his wife, Maisie. They had three daughters and two sons.
More information on this entry is available at the National Database of Irish-language biographies (Ainm.ie).