Margaret T. Pender

Life
1848-1920; [née O’Doherty; otherwise Mrs. M. T. Pender]; b. Co. Antrim; dg. of a farmer; ed. privately and at Ballyrobin Nat. School, and Convent of Mercy, Crumlin Rd., Belfast; married directly on leaving school; contributed to various periodicals; won prizes in Weekly Freeman and United Ireland competitions; a favourite contributor to Ireland’s Own; wrote poetry, short stories and patriotic novels incl. The Green Cockade, A Tale of Ulster in ‘98 (1898); her son John Justin Pender, who was a poet also, d. 1906 (aetat.35). DIW IF DUB

Biog. note: In the co-ordinated British and Irish copyright and university libraries catalogue [COPAC/Discovery Hub] her name and dates are given as ‘Pender, Margaret T. (née O’Doherty), 1865-1920 [sic] - and so stated universally in connection with copies held in Trinity College, Dublin, University Libraries of Oxford, National Library of Scotland, National Library of Wales, &, where her works are held. The Wikipedia biography, which takes in more detail of her life and her career, incorporates details of her place of death. - as follows, in summary:

Margaret Teresa Pender, b. 1848, dg. of Daniel Doherty, a Catholic farmer and a Presbtyterian mother (Margaret, née White), from a better-off family; yngest of seven children; her mat. grandf. William White and her mother both wrote poetry; ed. at home, Ballyrobin National School, and Convent of Mercy, Belfast; trained as a teacher and briefly taught at Aghagallon; m. Hugh Owen Pender, a printer, 1869, moving to Belfast with him; publ. poetry in Shamrock, Belfast Morning News, and the Nation; winner of several competitions; also wrote short stories and serialised novels, among them O'Neill of the Glen whcih became the first native Irish film as O'Neil of the Glen, adapted for the screen by T. W. Lysaght for the Film Company of Ireland in 1916; she died at home at 7, Newington St., Belfast, 17 March 1920; there is a photo in the curatorship of the Northern Ireland Historical Photographical Society. [Click to enlarge image.]
Source: NIHPS - online [Facebook]; also Wikipedia [online].

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Works
  • The Green Cockade; A Tale of Ulster in ’98 (Dublin: Sealy & Co. 1898), 382pp.; Do. [another edn.] (Dublin: Martin Lester [1920]).
  • Married in May (Talbot 1919); Do. [another edn.] (Dublin: Martin Lester [1920]), 211pp..
  • The Outlaw (Dublin: Martin Lester 1925).
  • The Bog of Lilies (Dublin: Talbot 1927); Do. [another edn.] (Dublin: Dublin: 1929).
  • The Spearmen of the North (Dublin: Talbot 1931), 349pp.
  • The Last of the Irish Chiefs (Dublin: Talbot [n.d.]); Do. [another edn.] (Martin Lester [1920]), [2] 279, [3]pp.
  • Bog of Lillies (Dublin & Cork: Talbot Press 1927), 254pp.
See also:
  • Séamus Mac Conmara, [trans.,] Taoiseach deireannach na nGaedheal / [le Mrs. M.T. Pender], Séamus Mac Conmara a d'aistrigh ó'n Bhéarla Baile Átha Cliath  Oifig an tSoláthair 1938), 373pp.
  • An cnota glas: The Green Cockade / le mrs. M.T. Pender). P. Mac Seághain a rinne an leagan Gaedhilge (Baile Átha Cliath 1941)
[ Note: The above is an exhaustive list of Library holdings in the British Isles; see COPAC/Discovery Hub - online <search: Margaret Pender>. ]


 

References
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), lists The Green Cockade (London: Downey & Co. [1898]), Do., rep. (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers [n.d.]) [ante-1907], & edns.; [love story in Ulster during Rebellion of 1798, with historical chars.]; The Last of the Irish Chiefs (publ in serial form and possibly unprinted otherwise), a sensational romance of Sir Cahir O’Doherty’s rising of 1608 in Derry.

Library of Herbert Bell (Belfast) holds The Green Cockade, Dublin 1898; The Spearman [sic] of the North (Dublin 1931).

 

Notes
Sealy & Co. (Dublin): Advertisement for The Green Cockade appears on the back papers of Samuel Ferguson’s Congal (Dublin: Sealy &c. 1907) identifying it as a work written with reference to events in Ulster in 1798.

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