Ellen Beck

Ellen Beck (18581924), was an Irish poet and writer. She wrote extensively for a variety of periodicals such as Chambers's Journal and the Irish Monthly under the pen name of Magdalen Rock. Her work was published in a variety of venues worldwide. She also wrote two books. A sandstone statue was erected in Beck's memory in Rock in 2015.

Biography Ellen Beck was born in the village of Rock, County Tyrone in 1858. She spent her life there as a teacher in the local school, beginning aged just sixteen. Beck published two books but had hundreds of poems and short stories published worldwide. However Beck herself claimed to have only left Rock twice in her life.

In 2015, a statue was unveiled in Rock, depicting a woman carrying two buckets of water steadied by a hoop. The life-size sandstone statue is both a tribute to generations of water-carrying village women, but also a memorial to Beck, who wrote about fetching ‘a Go of Water’ (a 'go' being a local term for two buckets) in her story ‘Day in the Life of an Ulster Village’.

Works The Mystery of Geoffrey Melcombe's Death (1895) Nellie's Lover and Other Stories (1896)