Born: 22 October 1907, Ireland
Died: 1999
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: Áine Ní Cheanainn or Cannon
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Noreen Giffney. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Ní Chanainn (Ní Cheanainn) (Cannon), Áine (1907–99), headmistress and co-founder of Cumann Scannán na nÓg, was born Annie Delia Cannon on 22 October 1907 in Derryvea, Kiltimagh, Co. Mayo, daughter of Michael Cannon, farmer and shopkeeper, and his wife Annie (née Kelly). She received her primary and secondary education at St Louis girls’ school before going on to Carysfort Training College (1925–7), from which she graduated with a qualification to teach at primary level. After this, she proceeded to study at UCD, obtaining an MA in education.
She began her teaching career in 1927 at Scoil Mhuire in Howth, Co. Dublin, remaining there till she was appointed (1941) as the principal of Scoil Eoin Baiste girls’ school in Clontarf, from which she retired in 1979. She was remembered as a somewhat frightening character, but nonetheless she was an inspiring educator and administrator who encouraged both her teachers and their students. By the early 1950s, the school ‘was one of the most prestigious in the capital’ (Irish Times, 12 June 1999). In the 1960s she introduced audio-visual equipment such as gramophones and slide projectors, years before their official introduction as part of the new curriculum in 1974.
As well as teaching and running her school, Ní Cheanainn was actively involved with many other aspects of education. She was coordinator (1972–5) of the Éigse Raifteirí Summer School and ran the Comóradh Mhic Éil in Castlebar. She was involved with the Irish branch of UNESCO in the Department of Education, and was a member of the Irish German Society and of Córfhéile na Scoileanna, founded to promote music in schools. She was chairman of Córfhéile na Scoileanna 1973–8. Ní Cheanainn organised training courses for teaching members of INTO, and visited Germany twice (1934, 1952) to study the German educational system.
Her enthusiasm for film led her to give papers at conferences as far afield as Chicago and Luxembourg, and to co-found and lecture to Cumann Scannán na nÓg, which subsequently merged with the Irish Film Institute to form the Irish Film Centre. She was the only woman appointed to the newly established Teilifís Éireann authority (1 June 1960–30 May 1965), but was disappointed not to be asked to serve for a second term. It was on her insistence that the new television station was called Teilifís Éireann; she opposed the form Teilís, suggested by others. She loved the Irish language, and spoke it whenever she could, leading Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich to refer to her as ‘an síneadh fada na Gaeilge’ (Irish Times, 12 June 1999), alluding to her formidable stature as well as to her enthusiasm for the Irish language; and she was also described as ‘a real de Valera woman’ (ibid.). She was interested in local history, and wrote Raifteirí an file (1984), on the poet Antaine Raiftearaí, who was also from Kiltimagh. She published a biography of Archbishop John MacHale of Tuam, Leon an Iarthair (1983); The heritage of Mayo (1988); and in 1962 an account of the introduction of audiovisual technology into Irish education.
She was unmarried and spent her last years in Grove Nursing Home, Killiney, Co. Dublin. On 23 March 1996 she was presented with a statuette in bronze in grateful appreciation of her work, by the committee of Córfhéile na Scoileanna. Towards the end of her life she changed the Irish form of her name from ‘Ceanainn’ to ‘Canainn’. She died in early June 1999, survived by one sister, and is buried in Kiltimagh, Co. Mayo.