Mary Barra

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Lore & Background

Mary Ann McCracken was born in Belfast on 8 July 1770. Her father, Captain John McCracken, a devout Presbyterian of Scottish descent, was a prominent shipowner and a partner in the building in 1784 of the town's first cotton mill. Her mother Ann Joy, from a French Huguenot family, had run her own milliner's shop before marriage and later managed a small business manufacturing muslin. Ann Joy was an ardent admirer of Thomas Paine from the publication of Common Sense (1776) until 1796, when with The Age of Reason he turned his invective from aristocracy to religion (her daughter accounted the 'infidel publication' a 'pity'). Mary Ann and her elder brother Henry Joy ('Harry') attended David Manson's progressive 'play school' in Donegall Street, where Manson sought to banish 'drudgery and the fear of the rod' and offered 'young ladies' the 'same extensive education as the young gentlemen'. Mary Ann developed a love of mathematics and literature. In 1788, brother and sister attempted a Sunday morning reading and writing class for the poor, but were put to flight by the town's Anglican rector, William Bristow, and several stick-wielding ladies. The McCrackens were a political household; the family's minister, Sinclair Kelburn, was a strong supporter of the Volunteer movement and urged Catholic Emancipation and parliamentary reform. McCracken's niece, Anna McCleery, relates that 'reared among such influences,' Mary Ann was 'from her early years intensely interested in politics'.

Reader's Guide

In the 1790s, following their mother's example, McCracken and her sister Margaret started a small business that pioneered the production of patterned and checked muslin. Initially a small scale operation employing workers in their own homes, by 1809 it had moved into factory production. In 1815, amidst the post-war collapse in demand, they were obliged to close. During earlier downturns, the sisters distinguished themselves as employers by refusing to cut costs at the expense of their employees; Mary Ann 'could not think of dismissing our workers, because nobody would give them employment'. She complained that the 'sphere of woman's industry' is 'so confined, and so few roads open to her, and those so thorny'. McCracken was fascinated by mechanical substitutes for labour, asking her brother whether it would be possible 'to contrive some useful machinery to supply the use of horses and servants'. She hoped mechanisation would afford workers energy and time for greater education and leisure. From 1784, the musician Edward (Atty) Bunting was thirty years a member of the McCracken household. In 1808, Mary Ann became a founding member of the Belfast Harp Society and acted as Bunting's unofficial secretary, contributing anonymously to the second volume of his work The Ancient Music of Ireland in 1809. She is known to have studied from Charles Vallency's Irish grammar. It is almost certain that Mary Ann McCracken took the United Irish pledge, likely not later than March 1797. She wrote to Harry of her hopes that the good example of John Templeton in taking the 'test' would soon be followed by the Templeton sisters. McCracken assured her brother she did not shrink from the prospect of political violence, accepting that 'the complete Union of Ireland' might 'demand the blood of some of her best Patriots to cement'. Her sole reservation was in opposing political assassination and the killing of informers: 'what is morally wrong can never be politically right'. When her brother was committed to Newgate in 1796, she wrote urging him to make up with Samuel Neilson as their 'example of disunion' was 'injurious to the cause'. In the 1798 rebellion, her brother Henry Joy McCracken seized county command in Antrim, proclaiming on 6 June the First Year of Liberty, but failed with heavy losses to seize Antrim Town.

Did You Know?

• Mary Ann McCracken's mother, Ann Joy, ran her own milliner's shop before marriage and was an ardent admirer of Thomas Paine until his The Age of Reason in 1796.
• In 1788, Mary Ann and her brother Harry attempted a Sunday school for the poor, but were driven off by the Anglican rector and several stick-wielding ladies.
• McCracken was a founding member of the Belfast Harp Society in 1808 and contributed anonymously to Edward Bunting's The Ancient Music of Ireland in 1809.
• She studied Irish from Charles Vallency's grammar and was a Gaeilgeoir enthusiast.
• A statue of Mary Ann McCracken was unveiled in the grounds of Belfast City Hall on International Women's Day, 8 March 2024.