Life
?1775-1819 [vars. 1780-1820]; b. 24 Jan., Derry; prob. Derry; dg.
of clergyman; on death of parents moved with sisters to Limavady and worked
as schoolteacher and later in at Castle St., Belfast, from 1813; committee-member
of the Belfast Harp Society est. by Edward Bunting and James MacDonnell,
1808; while living in Limavady issued Hope: A Poetical Essay (1810),
addressed to Bishop of Derry (Lord Hervey, Earl of Bristol), in whose
gift her father’s living had been; contains translations from Irish
and Kathleen O’Neil, a grand national melodrama in 3 acts
later performed at the Belfast Theatre (1814); moved to Belfast by 1813
and opened a school, reportedly at junction of Castle place and Castle
Street, which later closed; her poems to Irish airs, inspired by the example
of Tom Moore, were included in the enlarged edition of by Bunting’s
General Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland (2nd edn. 1809),
and others. PI TAY RAF MKA FDA OCIL DIL
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Works
Hope: A Poetical Essay: with Various Other Poems (Belfast: Smith
& Lyons 1810), ded. Earl of Bristol with epigraph from Charlotte Brooke;
Kathleen O’Neil: A Grand National Melodrama (Belfast: Archbold
& Duncan 1814); Mary Brunton, ed., Emmeline with Some Other Pieces
(Edinburgh: Manners & Miller 1819), and Do. [2nd edn.]
(Edinburgh: Manners & Miller/Archibald Constable & Co.; London:
John Murray 1820), cxx, 189pp., port. [incl. memoir of by Alexander Brunton
with extracts from Balfour’s corr.].
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- D. J. O’Donoghue, Shamrock 28 (1890), pp.102-03 [infra];
- McKenna, Irish Literature (1978) [subject index];
- Robert Welch, A History of Verse Translation from the Irish 1789-1897 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1988), pp.28-43 [infra].
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Notes
Edward Bunting, General Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland
([2nd enl. edn.] 1809), sets 8 of her poems to Irish airs and Hercules
Ellis, ed., Romances and Ballads of Ireland (London: Duffy 1850),
contains extracts.
D. J. O’Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (1909), notes under ‘Murphy, John’ that his Wild Flowers of Erin (Dublin 1811), incl. poems addressed to her and also to the harper Arthur O’Neill.
Brian Cleeve & Ann Brady, A Dictionary of Irish Writers [rev. edn. in 1 vol.] (Dublin: Lilliput 1985), remarks of her date of birth that ‘as D. J. O’Donoghue (Poets of Ireland, 1909, p.17) says she was "probably born on 24 Jan 1775",’ while other sources suggest that she was born as late as 1780.’
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2 selects "In Ringlets Curl’d Thy tresses Flow", and "The Dew Each Trembling Leaf Inwreath’d" [FDA2 10] a biographical note gives her date of birth as 1780 and the place Derry [FDA2 111].
Libraries: Belfast Linenhall Library holds Hope, a poetical essay (1810) and Kathleen O’Neil, poem (1814); Belfast Central Library holds Hope, A Poetical Essay (1810).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)