SNIPPET: Per Dublin's "Ireland of the Welcomes" magazine, Margaret BURKE-SHERIDAN was born in Castlebar, Co. Mayo, 15 Oct, 1889. Both of her parents died when she was four and Margaret was raised in a Dublin Orphanage where a musically-perceptive nun saw to it that she went to London for voice training. The 17-year-old Irish girl had striking beauty, a fresh and youthful voice, devastating wit, a charming but stubborn Gaelic personality - qualities that were to gain her a number of supporters such as the famous inventor Guglielmo MARCONI, poet William Butler YEATS and famous baritone Mattia BATTISTINI. When she visited Naples for the first time, to sing in a local concert, she had the courage to give the well-known Neapolitan song "Santa Lucia" in the local dialect. The audience rose to her, all of her mispronunciations forgiven and her then lack of stage presence forgotten. It was in Naples in 1919 that Margaret made her opera debut in PUCCINI's "Madam Butterfly" at the ! San Carlo. At La Scala her professional relationship with TOSCANINI was frequently volatile as both were blunt of speech and wanted their own way. Margaret became a PUCCINI specialist, for which she is best known, but accepted other demanding roles such as Desdemona in VERDI's "Othello." Her stunning vocalism - the sensuous beauty of her Italian, the color and richness of her Gaelic vowels revealing a deep pathos that may have come from the loneliness of her childhood - caused composer Giacomo PUCCINI to admire her voice greatly. For her performance in "Manon Lescaut," in Cremona, in Northern Italy, "Maggie from Mayo," as she called herself, child of the orphanage, wore an exquisite gown of blue silk and gold lace the opera composer presented to her. The opening night of Covent Garden's 1926 Italian season was attended by KING GEORGE who struggled valiantly to congratulate in simplest English the largely Italian cast of "La Boheme," and when he came to Margaret he remarked that "there is no language difficulty, since you are English." The young soprano was all dignity when she replied, "Sire, I beg your pardon, I am Irish." On two occasions, Margaret was offered Italian citizenship to which she gracefully declined. She would never forget her allegiance to Ireland, retiring to Dublin in 1935 where she lived until her death in 1958; curiously, however, she never sang in Ireland professionally. Margaret has been captured in a lovely portrait by Gaetano de GENNARO, found in Dublin's Gaiety Theatre. In the National Gallery of Ireland there is an exquisite pencil drawing of Ms. BURKE-SHERIDAN by Sean O'SULLIVAN, (1906-64).