[1] Her father, Cillian Ó Brolcháin (1905-1976), was professor of physics at UCG (now University of Galway), and her mother Mairéad (Coughlan) was a former domestic science teacher from Macroom, County Cork.
She gained her doctorate from the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) in 1982 with a thesis on the Banshenchas (literally "the woman lore").
[1] At this point she had already begun her decades-long work in teaching, initially as a part-time Irish lecturer at St Patrick's College, Maynooth.
[1] Ní Bhrolcháin was active in the campaign to try to prevent the construction of a motorway through the area close to Hill of Tara[7] (which eventually opened in 2010), arguing for its preservation as a monument of Irish cultural heritage.
In 1996, at the request of Michael D. Higgins (then Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht), she chaired a commission on the role of Irish-language voluntary organisations, whose report eventually contributed to the development of the Official Languages Act 2003.