MELANIE WARD profiles the abolitionist, social reformer and activist who fought for the rights of women, and championed Belfast’s poor throughout a long life that encompassed the most turbulent years of Irish history.
Born in Belfast on 8 July, 1770, Mary Ann McCracken spent her life campaigning for the rights of women and children, the abolition of slavery and the revival of Irish music, language and culture.
Mary Ann was one of six children born to Captain John McCracken, a devout Presbyterian of Scots descent, and his wife Ann Joy. They were a wealthy family – Mary Ann’s father was a ship owner who was also a partner in Belfast’s first cotton mill, while her mother descended from a French Hugenot family who had made a fortune through the linen industry and founded the Belfast Newsletter.
As Presbyterians, the Joy McCracken family suffered the same civil and political restrictions imposed on the Catholic majority and in the 1780s, along with other Presbyterians, they began lobbying for reform. In the 1790’s, Mary Ann’s three brothers joined the United Irishmen in the hope of ending English rule in Ireland and creating a free and just society for ‘Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter’.
Henry Joy and William McCracken were imprisoned in Kilmainham jail in 1797 for their political activities. Following their release later that year they took an active role in the 1798 rebellion and when it failed Mary tried to arrange for Henry Joy to escape to America.
He was arrested boarding the ship, tried and sentenced to death. Mary attended his trial and walked with him to the place of execution in Belfast High Street, only leaving at his request.
After Henry’s execution, Mary Ann took on responsibility for his illegitimate daughter Maria, adopting her and raising her until her marriage; as an old woman Mary Ann was to live with her niece and family.
From the 1790s Mary Ann and her sister Margaret ran a business manufacturing and selling linens. Originally employing home workers, the business was so successful that by the early nineteenth century it had moved to factory production and the McCracken sisters gained a reputation for being benevolent employers, refusing to cut costs by cutting wages. The economic collapse of 1815 resulted in the closure of the business.
Mary Ann continued to support the revolutionary cause. In 1803 she helped the United Irishman Thomas Russell escape to Dublin after he had tried – and failed – to win Northern support for Robert Emmett’s uprising.
Following his capture, she paid for his trial defence and, after his execution, his headstone.
Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own
