Mary O'Hara

< 1956

A successful appearance at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival, followed by her own programmes on the newly established BBC-TV, ushered in the Folk Revival in the Ireland of the 60s and also a revival of the Irish Harp as an accompanying instrument.

She was photographed by Baron for the Evening Standard and featured in Punch in a cartoon by Ronald Searle.

She married the poet Richard Selig, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and they planned to live in the United States. He introduced her to the song, I Gave My Love a Cherry (The Riddle Song), sung here by Mary, accompanying herself on the Irish harp.

Photo: Baron

The Riddle Song ..I Gave My Love a Cherry

1957 >


These plans were cruelly
disrupted by Richard’s
death from cancer and
Mary, devastated,
joined a closed order of
Benedictine nuns

1976 >

Mary resumed her singing career 12½ years after becoming a nun.

To renewed acclaim, she performed in all the major concert halls of the English-speaking world and recorded several new albums. The core of her work still and always remained her Irish Traditional song.

She repeated her success of 20 years earlier by having her own series of TV programmes not only on BBC-TV but also having two series of programmes on ITV.

Painting: Brigid Marlin >