Máire is the Irish language form of the English language name Mary. It was and still is a popular name in Ireland, and is sometimes spelt in its Anglicised form Maura. Its overwhelming popularity was due to the Irish devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, but in recent times Irish religious devotion has waned and far fewer girls are being named Máire or Mary.

Anyone who is usually known by the name Maria or its derivatives would have been registered as Máire at school in Ireland as this is the norm with all names where there is a translation. Even outside of school, a woman may, if she so chooses, be known as Máire on all legal documents as an Irish person's name has a legal form in either official language of the State. For example; a woman named Mary Murphy in English would be known in Irish as Máire Ní Mhurchú if she is unmarried and Máire Uí Mhurchú if she is married.

Due to a very strong devotion of Irish Catholics to the Blessed Virgin Mary, a special exception is made for Her name. In Irish, She is known as Muire and no one else may take that name similar to the way the name Jesus is not used in most languages.

Moya Brennan, born Máire Ní Bhraonáin (Irish pronunciation: [mˠaːrʲə nʲiː vɾˠiːn̪ˠaːn]), also known as Máire Brennan (born 4 August 1952), is an Irish folk singer, songwriter, harpist, and philanthropist. She began performing professionally in 1970 when her family formed the band Clannad, and is now widely considered as the "First Lady of Celtic Music". Moya released her first solo album in 1992 called Máire, a successful venture, her solo career has remained successful to this day, many years after Clannad took a hiatus in 1996. She has been nominated for two Grammys and has won an Emmy Award. She has recorded with many world-famous musicians and has provided music for several soundtracks, including Titanic, To End All Wars and King Arthur.

Máire Philomena Ní Bhraonáin (Irish pronunciation: [mˠaːrʲə nʲiː vɾˠiːn̪ˠaːn]) was born and grew up as the eldest child of a very musical family in the remote parish of Gweedore (Gaoth Dobhair), in Ireland's northernmost county, Donegal, a Gaeltacht area in which the Irish language and tradition continue to flourish. Her mother Máire (better known by her nickname, Baba)(née Ní Dhúgáin or Duggan in English) was a music teacher and her father Leo Brennan was a member of a cabaret band with whom she performed as a child. Moya is the eldest of nine children, her sisters are Deirdre, Eithne (better known as Enya), Olive, Brídín and her brothers are Ciarán, Pól, Leon and Bartley. She sang along with her siblings in the family pub, Leo's Tavern, in the village of Meenaleck, a short distance from the family home. She also took part in many pantomimes in Amharclann Ghaoth Dobhair, the local theatre, usually dancing and singing. After leaving secondary school Brennan spent a few years at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin studying the harp, the piano and singing. She later taught music at Holy Cross College in Falcarragh, County Donegal.

Máire Mhac an tSaoi (born 1922) is one of the most acclaimed and respected Irish language scholars, poets, writers and academics of modern literature in Irish. Along with Seán Ó Ríordáin and Máirtín Ó Direáin she is, in the words of Louis de Paor, 'one of a trinity of poets who revolutionised Irish language poetry in the 1940s and 50s.'

Mhac an tSaoi was born as Máire MacEntee in Dublin in 1922. Her father, Seán MacEntee, a native of Belfast, was a founding member of Fianna Fáil, a long-serving TD and Tánaiste in the Dáil and a participant in the Easter Rising of 1916. Her mother, County Tipperary-born Margaret Browne (or de Brún), a teacher at Alexandra College, was also an Irish republican. Her uncle, Monsignor Pádraig de Brún, was one of the most respected scholars of the Irish language in the twentieth century. Another uncle was the conservative prelate Michael Cardinal Browne, who was Master of the Dominican Order.

Her late husband was Conor Cruise O'Brien, an Irish politician, writer and historian. The couple were married in 1962 and later adopted two children, Patrick and Margaret.

Naisrín Elsafty (born 1989) is an Irish-Egyptian singer, notable as a distinguished exponent of sean-nós singing, an unaccompanied and heavily ornamented style characteristic of the Irish-speaking area where she grew up.

Naisrín is one of the younger daughters of Treasa Ní Cheannabháin, a native of County Galway and a fine singer in the sean-nós tradition, and Saber Elsafty, an Egyptian doctor. She was raised with her sisters and her twin brother in the Conamara Gaeltacht in the West of Ireland.

Naisrín grew up in a multicultural and multi-religious household, celebrating both Christmas and the Muslim festival of Eid ul-Fitr (the end of Ramadan). Her parents had met while working in Denmark and eventually married in the Conamara parish of Cill Chiaráin.

The children attended local schools and grew up bilingual in Irish and English.

Naisrín and her family retain links with the Middle East, and in 2008 she and her mother were detained for a time in Gaza after slipping across the border from Egypt while carrying money collected in Ireland for Palestinian families.

Máire Ní Chathasaigh (Irish pronunciation: [ˈmˠaːɾʲə nʲiː ˈxahəsˠəɟ]) (born 1956) is an Irish harpist and singer. She began playing at only eleven years old, inspired by her family, many of whom are noted musicians from West Cork. She drew heavily on traditional styles, but also created new techniques of ornamentation. She has won the All-Ireland competition at under-fourteen and under-eighteen levels and then, in the mid 1970s, she won the Senior version three years in succession.

Her 1985 The New-Strung Harp was the first harp album to consist of exclusively Irish traditional dance music. Her stylistic innovations made her famous in the Celtic music scene, and she began teaching in continental Europe and in the United States. She has taught for more than fifteen years at Cúirt Chruitireachta, a school in Termonfeckin, County Louth, organized the Irish Harp Society, Cairde na Cruite. Her arrangements have been collected in two books, The Irish Harper Vols. I and II, and she has an honours degree in Celtic Studies from University College Cork. In 1989 she recorded The Living Wood with guitarist Chris Newman, they have worked extensively together as a duo since then.