Margaret Sheridan (Burke)

Opera singer. A spinto soprano who billed herself as "Maggie from Mayo", she had a brief but spectacular career in the leading houses of Italy and England. Though she twisted her story a bit over the years, Maggie was a middle-class girl who was orphaned at 11 and sent to live in a Dublin convent. There the nuns recognized her talent, and with the help of a wealthy patron, sent her to London's Royal Academy of Music for training. She made progress, winning a medal at the 1908 Feis Ceoil...