Mary Barry O'Delaney

Mary Barry O'Delaney (born Mary Barry Delany; 1862–1947) was an Irish journalist and nationalist.

Life Mary Barry O'Delaney was born Mary Barry Delany in 1862, adopting O'Delaney when she became a journalist. She left Ireland for Paris in 1883, making a living through her journalism, primarily religious in subject as she was a devout Catholic. All her life O'Delaney also wrote stories, including ghost stories, and poetry for newspapers. By the 1890s she was working for the Daily Irish Independent as the Paris correspondent. It was around this time that O'Delaney became friends with Maud Gonne, comparing her to Joan of Arc and hailing her as "our island's maiden queen" in a poem published in February 1898. She was not as close to Gonne's daughter, Iseult, who was irritated by her religious fervour. She acted as W. B. Yeats' secretary when he visited France. When Gonne returned to Ireland in 1918, O'Delaney went with her, looking after her affairs while Gonne was imprisoned. During the Irish War of Independence, O'Delaney's knee was shattered by a bullet.

O'Delaney stood as godmother to Francis Stuart when he converted to Catholicism in advance of his marriage to Iseult. In later life, she lived at the Gonne–MacBride residence, Roebuck House, Clonskeagh, County Dublin. She and Gonne continued their collaboration on political activities until her death in 1947. She signed her writings as "MD", "MB" and "M.O'D." as well as a number of pen names such as "Joseph May".