sister. At Clifton House, where Mary Ann provided long years of support to the women and children, it may be taken to refer to her lifelong devotion to the disadvantaged.
The Society in More Modern Times
Accommodation for children ceased in 1882 when other organisations had taken over the provision of care for children. Thereafter, the care facility was provided for the elderly. Dr. Strain in Belfast and its Charitable Society, published in 1961, described the work of the Society (at the time when Ms McNeill was on the Board of the Society and her biography of Mary Ann had just been published). In 1961, there were 144 older men and woman residents at Clifton House who, having secured a place, would have a home for life. Payment was based on ability to pay and no one was refused a place because of inability to pay. Dr. Strain expressed the view that “For the elderly applicants for admission poverty has taken a new form. Extreme financial hardship is rare. Instead there is a poverty of care and affection. This may be the result of living alone on the one hand or of the stresses of overcrowding on the other.”
As the twentieth century came to a close it became necessary for care facilities to be reviewed. The Society faced new regulations to provide modern standards of care for the elderly. A purpose-built nursing home for the elderly housing 100 residents was completed nearby at Carlisle Circus. Clifton Nursing Home was developed through the unstinting work of Lady Quigley who was chair of the ‘Home from Home’ appeal that raised the funds from business to complete the development and was President of the Society from 2007 to 2017.
Clifton House continues to house the Belfast Charitable Society, which in 2019 held its 247th Annual General Meeting in its 266th year. Under the stewardship of recent Boards of the Society, the strategic move has been made away from the direct provision of care and the emphasis has been placed on philanthropy, the remarkable heritage of the Society and measures designed to address the ever changing face of disadvantage.
Today the Society facilitates the care of older people at Clifton House and at Clifton Nursing Home through delivery of care by a specialist provider for those with supported care, sheltered housing and nursing-care needs.
While Clifton House is located in North Belfast, one of the most deprived areas in Northern Ireland, the Society also seeks to address need beyond North Belfast. Deprivation is addressed through assistance, both directly and indirectly, for those who are disadvantaged in education, training for employment, accommodation and health.
Some of the projects underway in 2019 may illustrate the nature of the work. ‘Building Better Futures’ is a partnership with the Building Change Trust and the Ulster Community Investment Trust which together have established a fund from which small voluntary organisations may obtain loans to tackle disadvantage. For example, the loans may provide training programmes for young adults with learning needs, services to improve mental health and well-being and improving sports facilities.
The ‘Barbour Fund’ was established with the Hilden District Nursing Society to advance education and training by way of bursaries and grants. This has included support for the Belfast Hospital School which provides for those excluded from the education system, whether by reason of illness or removal from formal schooling. Funding has also been provided for activities for older people suffering from isolation.
The ‘North Belfast Heritage Cluster’ involves 15 local heritage-based voluntary organisations headed by the Society that seek to advance the regeneration of the immediate area. The cluster includes various churches, the Carnegie Library and the North Belfast Working Men’s Club. The project receives funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Direct grants have been made to NI Hospice to support those requiring palliative care. The grants have supported a building programme and a renewal of the means of delivering services.
The Society also seeks to encourage philanthropy by influencing others and supporting organisations to further that purpose. The promotion of our rich heritage includes access to an extraordinary collection of archive material dating back before 1752, containing minutes and letters detailing the lives of thousands in the Poorhouse and the actions of those who managed the home, amounting to a social commentary on the times. The archive is an historical treasure. Programmes of tours and talks and lectures allow the sharing of that history.
The Mary Ann McCracken Foundation
The Society has created a Mary Ann McCracken Foundation designed to broaden public knowledge of her immense contribution to addressing the social issues of her day, to increase appreciation of the values of that contribution and to relate that experience to the current work of the Society in addressing the social issues of today. This republication of Ms McNeill’s work is a part of that development.
In her scholarly work, Ms McNeill captured the energy of Mary Ann. The disadvantage Mary Ann confronted all her life has its own form and substance today. That same energy remains essential to address present disadvantage. It is to be hoped that the republication of this life of Mary Ann McCracken will inspire those unfamiliar with her history to added concern for the objects of the Society in the care of the elderly, the relief of poverty, homelessness, distress, infirmity and sickness.
Mary Ann embodied many admirable qualities. She could have been the subject of President Barak Obama’s remarks in the Waterfront Hall in Belfast on 17 June 2013:
So many of the qualities that we Americans hold dear are imported from this land – perseverance, faith, an unbending belief that we make our own destiny, and an unshakable dream that if we work hard and live responsibly, something better lies just around the bend.
Sir Ronald Weatherup
President of Belfast Charitable Society
September 2019
ORIGINAL FOREWORD
At the close of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries the North of Ireland was profoundly influenced by the American, the French and the Industrial Revolutions. Mary Ann McCracken’s long life spanned this great era of upheaval and creative change. A woman of strong character and generous sympathies, with a ready pen and a forthright mind, she was solidly embedded in that vigorous, industrious, intellectually alert middle class which played such a decisive part in moulding British and Ulster life. She suffered deeply from the tragic consequences of rebellion. But she was unbroken, and after the saddening days of 1798 and 1803 she threw herself with enthusiastic energy into living a many-sided life dominated by family affection and humanitarian zeal. Mary McCracken and her circle were keen letter writers and fortunately much of what they wrote has survived. This mass of correspondence has been used by Miss McNeill in composing her account of Mary McCracken’s life. Miss McNeill brings to her task not only industry but also a sympathetic understanding of her subject’s ideals and feelings and keen awareness of Belfast, the growing city, pulsating with energy, in which Mary Ann McCracken’s life was spent.
R.B. McDowell
Trinity College, Dublin
18 September 1959
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
Mary Ann McCracken is known to many as the devoted sister of Henry Joy McCracken, most famous of the Northern leaders in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Few, however, are aware of the other activities of her long career and of the charm and forthrightness of her personality. Except for the short monograph included in Historical Notices of Old Belfast [1896] by R.M. Young, no story of her life has been written. Yet from contemporary sources and from her own letters and writings it is possible to get a complete picture of the sort of person she was, and of her varied and outstanding achievements during one of the most fascinating periods of Irish life.
In
