The Life and Times of Mary Ann McCracken, 1770-1866

Revised new paperback edition of the classic biography of Belfast abolitionist and social reformer, Mary Ann McCracken. Reissued to mark 250th anniversary of her birth. Long overshadowed by her United Irishman brother, Henry Joy, but her story is more relevant than ever.

Mary Alice McNeill (1897-1984) was born in Belfast and educated in Oxford and Dublin. Returning to Belfast in the mid-1920s, she became a member of the Arellian Association, which established a nursery school for the city’ s poor children in 1928 – nearly 100 years after Mary Ann McCracken established a nursery school in the Poor House. McNeill dedicated her life to voluntary projects and served on the Board of the Belfast Charitable Society from 1945 to 1964. She published her first historical biography, The Life and Times of Mary Ann McCracken, in 1960.

McCracken Family Tree Foreword by Lady Quigley, President of the Belfast Charitable Society Introduction 1. Francis Joy, 1697– 1790 2. Henry and Robert Joy, 1720– 1785 3. Captain and Mrs McCracken, 1745– 1770 4. Childhood and Adolescence, 1770– 1790 5. The United Irishmen, 1783– 1791 6. The Revival of Irish Music, 1792 7. Reform or Revolution, 1791– 1795 8. Kilmainham. Part I, 1795– 9. Kilmainham. Part II, – 1797 10. Antrim, 1798 11. Thomas Russell, 1798– 1803 12. Interlude, 1803– 1810 13. The Turning Point, 1810– 1827 14. The Ladies Committee, 1827– 1851 15. The Last Years, 1851– 1866