Bríd Mahon

Bríd Mahon (Irish: Bríd Ní Mhathúna, 14 July 1918 – 20 February 2008) was an Irish folklorist and writer, focussing on traditional food and clothing. She began her career as a child, writing a radio script on the history and music of County Cork for Radio Éireann. Hired to work as a typist for the Irish Folklore Commission, she remained there until its disbanding in 1970, simultaneously developing a second career as a journalist, serving as a theatre critic and writing the women's page for The Sunday Press. Her best-selling juvenile fiction, The Search for the Tinker Chief, was optioned by Disney. Though she was discouraged from publishing information collected on Irish folklore, she conducted research and published non-fiction works on Irish clothing and food, later working as a folklorist and lecturer at University College Dublin and then teaching at the University of California.