Life
1867-?; b. Coalisland, Co. Tyrone; dg. of Rev. James Foster, Presbyterian minister at Newmills; settled Belfast; novels, The Bush that Burned (1931); Tyrone Among the Bushes (1933); Manse Larks (1936); Elders’ Daughters (1942). IF2
Notes
No entry Dictionary of Ulster Biography, ed. Kate Newmann (Belfast:
QUB/IIS 1993).
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References
Desmond Clarke, Ireland in Fiction: A Guide to Irish Novels, Tales, Romances and Folklore [Pt. 2] (Cork: Royal Carbery 1985), lists The Bush that Burned, An Idyll of Ulster Life (Dublin: Talbot 1931), 300pp. [young man goes to university in Belfast, becomes minister, returns to native parish as pastor, and marries dg. of local magnate]; Tyrone Among the Bushes (Belfast: Quota 1933), stories, ill. Alfred E. Kerr;
[sketches about Popish and Presbyterian Ulster folk in Co. Tyrone]; Manse Larks (Belfast: Quota 1936), 157pp. [Ulster life seen from the manse (minister’s house), 1890-1900]; autobiographical sketch]; and Elders’ Daughters (Belfast: Quota 1942), 264pp. [Kildarragh Meeting House, Co. Tyrone; old
Orange lady whose last words were ‘Derry, Aughrim, and the Boyne’]; all sympathetically but not indulgently dealing with country folk in mid-Ulster. ‘As an interpreter of the life, character, and prejudices of Ulster Presbyterians, she stands unrivalled.’
Belfast Public Library holds Ulster Folklore (1951); Bush that Burned (1931); Elder’s Daughters (1942); Manse Larks (1936); Tyrone among the Bushes (1933).
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