Eibhlín Nic Niocaill (1884-1909) was an Irish-language activist prominent in the Gaelic League. Born in Dublin to a nationalistic Irish-speaking family, some of whom would become members of Sinn Féin, Nic Niocaill studied Old Irish under the tutorship of Celtologist Henri d’Arbois de Jubainville, lectured for a time in the University of Paris, and would reorganise and revive a Paris branch of the Gaelic League. Returning to Ireland, she took a prominent role in frontline language activism, her writings and lectures published in the Gaelic League’s organ, An Claidheamh Soluis. Close friends with Pádraig Pearse, a friendship some historians have speculated may have been romantic, Nic Niocaill tragically died in August 1909, drowning off the coast of the Blasket Islands whilst attempting to teach Cáit Ní Criomhthain, daughter of the famed novelist Tomás Ó Criomhthain how to swim. Cáit’s brother, Donal, also perished trying to save them, however Cáit survived. Pearse, in an An Claidheamh Soluis editorial, wrote that Nic Niocaill was the ‘most nobly planned’ of all the women in the movement he had known.