Mary Ann McCracken – feminist, abolitionist, social reformer.
“I hope the present era will produce some women of sufficient talent to inspire the rest with a genuine love of Liberty and a just sense of its value… for where it is understood it must be desired … I therefore hope it is reserved for the Irish nation to strike out something new and to show an example of candour, generosity and justice superior to any that have gone before”.
These are the words of Mary Ann McCracken, written in a letter to her brother, Henry Joy McCracken, before his execution. Mary Ann was an abolitionist, a feminist, a social reformer, and a champion for the rights of the poor and disenfranchised. Having dedicated her life to campaigning for the betterment of others, her legacy has been primarily confined to the legacy of her more famous brother, the United Irishman Henry Joy McCracken. The inscription upon Mary Ann McCracken’s grave reads, ‘she wept by her brother’s scaffold’, and ‘Díleas go h-éag’, which translates into English as ‘loyal unto death’. While Mary Ann’s proclaimed loyalty may be presumed to having been to her brother, it is true that she remained loyal to the principles of equality and justice which guided the beliefs of the United Irishmen, and which were embodied by Mary Ann McCracken throughout her long life.
Born in 1770 to a middle-class, Presbyterian family, Mary Ann McCracken came from a long line of social reformers. Her maternal grandfather, Francis Joy, founded Belfast’s first newspaper, the Belfast News-Letter, in 1737, and the Joy family were amongst the earliest members of the Belfast Charitable Society, which was founded in 1752. The Society was responsible for the design and construction of Clifton House, Belfast’s first institution for the care of the destitute, which opened in 1774. As a child, Mary Ann was aware of her family’s involvement with Clifton House, and would later become a prominent member of the Belfast Charitable Society.
During the middle to late 18th century, Belfast was a hub of radical thinking in Ireland, with many mercantile families and entrepreneurs inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment and various international revolutions, including the French, American, and Haitian Revolutions.
The McCracken family were such a family and sought to raise their children radically. Under the instruction of David Manson, an innovative schoolmaster who disagreed with the practice of corporal punishment and believed in teaching both boys and girls, Mary Ann and her brother Henry were educated in a house in Donegall Street. This upbringing and early experience of equality instilled the importance of education within Mary Ann McCracken.
Later in her life, Mary Ann, as a prominent member of the Belfast Charitable Society, formed the Ladies’ Committee and acted as its secretary between 1832 and 1855. Through her work, Mary Ann sought to not just make conditions bearable for poor women and children, but to improve them, and to provide vulnerable people with a good quality of life. With a school for girls already existing in Clifton House, Mary Ann and the Ladies’ Committee successfully campaigned for an Infant School, so that children aged two to seven could be provided with an education as early as possible. Mary Ann McCracken also fought to improve conditions within the Poor House, demanding better nutrition and sanitation for those living within its walls, and she provided candles for the children herself, so that they could continue to read and learn outside of school hours. Mary Ann also campaigned to end the practice of using young boys as chimney sweeps, arguing that it was a danger for the children and their health.
Through her work in the Society, Mary Ann McCracken was involved in providing famine relief during an Gorta Mór and helped to establish the Belfast Ladies Association for the Relief of Irish Destitution in 1847.
The McCracken family were pioneers of textile manufacturing, who laid the groundwork for Belfast’s industrial heritage, according to Mary McNeill. Mary Ann continued this practice, establishing a muslin business with her sister Margaret when she was just 22 years old. During times of financial hardship, the sisters refused to let go of any of their workers, as Mary Ann stated that she “could not think of dismissing our workers, because nobody would give them employment”.
Mary Ann McCracken was an early feminist, greatly inspired by the work of Mary Wollstonecraft, especially A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and the work of prison reformer Elizabeth Fry. McCracken saw similarities between the struggle for abolition, and the struggle for the rights of women, writing that, “there can be no argument in favour of the slavery of women that has not been used in favour of general slavery and which have been successfully combatted by many able writers”.
As an ardent abolitionist, Mary Ann continued to keep the spirit of radicalism and abolitionism alive in Belfast through her anti-slavery work. The anecdote of Mary Ann standing at the Belfast docks, “the little frail, bent figure”, just days away from her 89th birthday, continuing to hand out anti-slavery leaflets to emigrants leaving for the United States, is a testament to the strength of Mary Ann’s radical compassion and politics. Mary Ann warned passengers at the docks, that America, “considered the land of the great, the brave may more properly be styled the land of the tyrant and the Slave”. Mary Ann created and distributed anti-slavery literature, refused to consume sugar, as it was a product of the slave trade, imported from the West Indies plantations, and wore one of the famous Wedgwood brooches, adorned with the image of a slave and the slogan, “Am I not a man and brother”.
Mary Ann McCracken also shared in her family’s interest in reviving the oral-music tradition of Ireland, a century before the beginning of the Gaelic Revival. Mary Ann was one of the founding members of the Belfast Harp Society, which was established in 1808, and showed great support for Edward Bunting, an Irish musician and folk music collector. Mary Ann acted as Bunting’s unofficial secretary and contributed anonymously to the second volume of his work, The Ancient Music of Ireland, in 1809.
While often overshadowed by the legacy of her brother, Mary Ann was a dedicated supporter of the United Irishmen, and after the Battle of Antrim, Mary Ann and her sister-in-law Rose Ann, set out on foot to find her brothers William and Henry. After finding the hiding spot of her brothers, Mary Ann sent food, money and clothing via various messengers, and met with Henry twice, before his capture and arrest. When the McCracken family heard of Henry’s arrest, it was Mary Ann who accompanied her father to Carrickfergus Gaol, and it was Mary Ann to whom Henry entrusted to convey to fellow United Irishman Thomas Russell, that he had done his duty.
Writing an account of her brother’s execution forty years later, for Dr Madden, historian of the United Irishmen, Mary Ann wrote of how, “Notwithstanding the grief that overcame every feeling for a time, and still lingers in my breast … I never once wished that my beloved brother had taken any other part than that which he did take”.
Mary Ann’s own and sole biographer, Mary McNeil, wrote that “her ideals remained unshaken, and the rest of her life was dedicated to those same principles that had driven both Harry and Thomas to the scaffold”. The principles of equality, enlightenment and freedom were embodied and pursued by Mary Ann McCracken, until her death at the age of 96, on 26 July 1866.
