 Travelling around Mayo with her father Townsend Gahan, who was a civil engineer, gave Muriel Gahan an insight into the depths of rural poverty which existed in communities.Gahan was educated at home under the care of a governess; she subsequently went to a girls' school on Wales and then returned to Ireland in 1914 to attend Alexandra College, where she met her lifelong friend and collaborator Olivia Cruikshank, later Hughes.Gahan also played field hockey for Maids of the Mountain.