Author: Tighe, Mary
Biography:
TIGHE, Mary formerly BLACHFORD (1772-1810: ODNB)
She was born at Dublin to Theodosia (Tighe) and the Rev. William Blachford (d 1773), an Anglican clergyman and the librarian of Marsh’s Library, Dublin. Theodosia’s family owned estates in counties Wicklow and Kilkenny; she was a writer, an activist for the Methodist movement, and a believer in liberal education for women. Mary’s great beauty attracted attention and suitors; under the influence of her mother, she was also studious, reflective, and early began writing verse. Despite not loving him, she eventually accepted a proposal from her cousin, Henry Tighe, a lawyer. They married in 1793 and settled in London where they were prominent members of high society and where Mary met many other writers including Thomas Moore (q.v.). The couple periodically returned to Ireland and was drawn into Irish political events; Henry represented Inistioge, co. Kilkenny, in the Irish parliament before the Act of Union, and served as a cavalryman in Wicklow during the 1798 Rising. From 1801 they lived in Ireland but Mary’s health was already deteriorating and she turned more and more to writing rather than to social activities. In about 1804 she was diagnosed as suffering from tuberculosis. In 1805 she had her long poem, Psyche, privately printed; although there were just fifty copies, these circulated widely and attracted praise. She died at the Wicklow home of her cousin, William, and was buried at Inistioge. Although it was the 1811 edition of Psyche, with Other Poems (edited by William) that made her name, she had written many other poems, and some of these were included in Mary, a Series of Reflections while others were not published until the twenty-first century. Her five-volume novel, Selena, was first published in 2012, edited by Harriet Kramer Linkin who also edited Tighe's Collected Poems and Journals (2005), Collected Letters (2020), and Verses Transcribed for H.T. (online at romantic-circles.org). (DIB 30 Nov. 2020; ODNB 30 Nov. 2020; Paula R. Feldman and Brian C. Cooney, The Collected Poetry of Mary Tighe [2016])
Other Names:
- Mrs. H. Tighe
- Mrs. Henry Tighe