Author: Balfour, Mary
Biography:
BALFOUR, Mary (b c. 1789: DIB)
Her exact dates are not known but her father, John Balfour, was a physician who married a Miss Moore, daughter of Dr. Samuel Moore, in Derry in 1778. He became a clergyman in 1789 and served the church at Arregall [Errigal], Londonderry, from 1797 until his death in 1807. Likely Mary Balfour’s mother had predeceased him. Mary Balfour had several sisters and, with them, she established schools at Limavady, Londonderry, and Belfast. The preface to Hope is dated from Limavady. She knew Irish, was a member of Belfast’s Harp Society, and contributed to Edward Bunting’s 1809 General Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland. One of the poems in Hope she later rewrote as Kathleen O’Neill. A Grand National Melodrama and it was performed and published in Belfast in 1814. (DIB; Cambridge Guide to Women’s Writing in English)
Other Names:
- Miss [Mary] Balfour