Nic Shiubhlaigh, Máire (1883–1958), actress and republican, was born Mary Elizabeth Walker, 8 May 1883, at 39 Charlemont Street, Dublin, daughter of Matthew Walker, a printer and typesetter, and Mary Anne Walker (née Dogherty), a dressmaker. Her father, who had printed Fenian and other nationalist material, later went on to found the Tower Press in Dublin. Reared in an Irish-speaking household, she began her own contact with nationalism when she joined the Gaelic League (c.1898), through which she became acquainted with William Rooney (qv) and Arthur Griffith (qv), and Inghinidhe na hÉireann from its inception in October 1900. Recalling the idealism of these years, she described her associates as ‘earnest young people … anxious to do something useful for Ireland’ (Nic Shiubhlaigh, xvi). This period coincided with her growing interest in drama. A friend of drama enthusiasts Willie Fay (qv), who lived with the Walker family, and Frank Fay (qv), who taught her elocution (1900), she made early stage appearances as an Inghinidhe member when the organisation staged a series of tableaux vivants of Irish history at the Antient Concert Room (1901), at poetry recitals in the Father Mathew and St Theresa Halls, Dublin, and alongside Wille Fay in productions of the Ormond Dramatic Company.
Continuing to work under Willie Fay, she achieved her first significant break as an actress when she took part in the Irish National Dramatic Company's productions of ‘Deirdre’ by George Russell (qv) and ‘Kathleen ni Houlihan’ by W. B. Yeats (qv) at the St Theresa Hall (2 April 1902). Her own performances as Lavarcham and Delia Cahel in both plays received favourable notices, while the acclaim which greeted the productions led to the subsequent formation of the Irish National Theatre Society (February 1903), of which she was a founder member. Throughout the period that followed she gave over much of her free time to the INTS, appearing as Kate Ford in ‘Twenty-five’ and the Angel in ‘The hour-glass’ (March 1903), in the Queen's Gate Theatre, South Kensington, during their first London performance (May 1903), and as the original Nora Burke in ‘The shadow of the glen’ (October 1903) and Maire Hourican in ‘Broken soil’ (December 1903). Critics were invariably enthusiastic about her acting. Referring to her performance in ‘Broken soil’, Joseph Holloway (qv) wrote ‘She has the temperament of an artist and a fascinating personality that pervades all her work’ (Holloway, 30–31). Similarly, her resonant speaking voice and good looks won over London reviewers in 1903, the drama critic of The Times referring specifically to her ‘strange, wan, “disquieting” beauty’ (Nic Shiubhlaigh, 196).
These commitments were maintained alongside her work as an embroiderer at the Dun Emer Industries in Dundrum, Co. Dublin. She was evidently a valued member of staff, as her name appears with those of Susan Mary ‘Lily’ Yeats (qv), Elizabeth ‘Lollie’ Yeats (qv), Evelyn Gleeson (qv), and Russell as a committee member of Dun Emer Industries, when it was established as a limited company in 1904.
The highpoint in her theatrical career undoubtedly came in the early days of the Abbey Theatre. Her standing as the company's leading lady was reflected in the fact that her portrait by John Butler Yeats (qv) was hung in the theatre foyer beside those of W. B. Yeats, the Fays, and Annie Horniman (qv) on the theatre's opening night (27 December 1904). The Walker family as a whole was well represented. While she impressed in the title role of Kathleen Ní Houlihan, her brother Frank also performed, her mother was employed as wardrobe mistress, and sisters Annie and Gypsy (subsequently better known on the stage as ‘Eileen O'Doherty’ and ‘Betty King’ respectively), were engaged selling programmes. Adding to her repertoire as an Abbey actress, she received excellent notices for performances as Dectora (‘The shadowy waters’, January 1904), Bride (‘The well of the saints’, February 1905) and Queen Gormleith (‘Kincora’, March 1905). However, her initially close relations with the theatre deteriorated after Horniman and Yeats decided to professionalise the company players. She was frustrated at seeing the INTS's original cooperative organisation and nationalist principles undermined; her alienation from the Abbey also stemmed from the poor salary offered to her brother, and her own annoyance at being offered a smaller wage than Sara Allgood (qv). After much indecision and bargaining, she eventually signed the contract offered by Yeats (she was offered an equal salary to Allgood, with additional duties in taking care of costumes) only to resign from the company soon after, together with a number of influential colleagues such as Helen Laird (qv), George Russell, Padraic Colum (qv), and her then boyfriend George Starkey. Her own departure was a major loss to the Abbey, who were left without an actress capable of tackling verse plays.
After completing her final commitments with the Abbey (December 1905), she went on to experience mixed success with the Theatre of Ireland, which she helped found the following year. Among their often uneven productions she triumphed in ‘The shuiler's child’ (April 1909), the leading role of Moll Woods being written specially for her by Seumas O'Kelly (qv). She also continued her work as an embroiderer, remaining as an employee of Gleeson's at Dun Emer after her partnership with the Yeats sisters broke up in 1908. Having turned down an offer from Augusta Gregory (qv) to rejoin the Abbey in 1907, she eventually did return in 1910, a production of ‘The shuiler's child’ (24 November) marking her comeback. She later took part in their first tour of America (1911–12), which, though successful, was marred by the often violent hostility that greeted productions of ‘The playboy of the western world’. Her continuing discomfort with the Abbey's new regime led her to leave its ranks for a second time in 1912, after which she concentrated on amateur theatricals, politics, and her own work as an elocution teacher. She subsequently restricted her acting to performances in smaller amateur companies such as the short-lived Irish Theatre (1914) of Edward Martyn (qv) and Thomas MacDonagh (qv), and the Leinster Stage Society, in Irish-language productions for the Gaelic League, and in fundraising concerts for Cumann na mBan. She and her sister Gypsy also took part in the ‘at home’ concerts of the Irish Women's Franchise League at their offices in Westmoreland Street.
A senior Cumann na mBan activist, she originally attended the meetings of its Ard Craobh before moving to Glasthule, Co. Dublin (1916), where she established a local branch of up to twenty members. She took part in the Easter rising of 1916, spending most of her time in the ground-floor rooms of Jacob's factory, where she took charge of the Cumann na mBan volunteers and prepared meals. At MacDonagh's insistence, she left shortly before the surrender and so evaded arrest. She maintained her close links with the republican movement and in later years joined the Anti-Partition League, formed in 1947.
Continuing her work in the theatre, she produced and acted in plays at provincial drama festivals, and for Radio Éireann. She returned to the Abbey stage as a performer with the experimental Dublin Drama League, as Andromache in a production of ‘The Trojan women’ (7 March 1920), appearing alongside Maud Gonne (qv) as Hecuba. In 1937 she turned down an offer from Hugh Hunt (qv) to return to the Abbey as the Widow Quin for a revival of ‘The playboy of the western world’. She made her last stage appearance, alongside her sister Gypsy, in a production of ‘Gaol gate’ at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin, on 21 November 1948, staged to mark the 150th anniversary of the death of Theobald Wolfe Tone (qv). In 1928 she married General Eamonn Price, brother of Leslie de Barra (qv). Some time after his retirement from the civil service (December 1929) they moved to Laytown, Co. Meath. Her reminiscences of the Irish national and theatrical movements in Dublin, based on a lecture given to Galway branch of the Women Graduates Association in 1948, were published in 1955. She died 9 September 1958 in the Drogheda cottage hospital. A portrait, painted by John Butler Yeats in 1904, hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland.
More information on this entry is available at the National Database of Irish-language biographies (Ainm.ie).