Mary [Anne] Sadleir

Sadleir, Mary [Anne] (née Mary [Anne] Madden) (1820-1903), author of novels addressing mainly an Irish-American female audience. Born in Cootehill, Co. Cavan, she emigrated to Canada in 1844 and married the publisher James Sadleir in 1846. Father Sheehy (1845), her earliest book, narrates the story of a priest wrongfully executed at Clonmel in 1766. Many of her works are patriotic historical romances (The Confederate Chiefs, 1859; The Red Hand of Ulster, 1850: The Daughters of Tyrconnell, 1863; MacCarthy More, 1868). Others deal with the trials of newly arrived emigrants (Willy Burke, 1850; The Blakes and the Flanagans, 1855; Bessy Conway, 1861; Simon Kerrigan, 1864; and Confessions of an Agnostic, 1864). Several of her novels are frame-stories for the recitation of tradition, legend, and song. Such are The Old House by the Boyne (1865) and The Heiress of Kilorgan (1867).