sentences:  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.Completely unrelated to this, Maire is also a female first name in Finland and Estonia.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.