Mary Letitia Martin
Mary Letitia Martin was an Irish writer who was known as the "Princess of Connemara". Educated at home in the upper-class style, she was fluent in numerous languages. She published two books in her lifetime, and a third was published posthumously.
After losing her fortune during the Great Famine, Martin and her husband went to Belgium for a time, where she contributed to periodicals. They sailed to America in 1850, but Martin died 10 days after arrival due to complications of premature childbirth.
Biography
Martin was born into the chief landowning family of Connemara, the Martins of Ballynahinch Castle, a branch of the Martyn Tribe of Galway. Her parents were Thomas Barnwall Martin and Julia Kirwin; her paternal grandfather was Richard Martin MP.Educated at home and by herself, Martin became fluent in Irish, English, French and a number of other languages. According to Maria Edgeworth, who had met her during her tour of Connemara in 1833, she was courted in 1834 by Count Adolphe de Werdinsky, whom she had met in London earlier that year. She refused to marry and de Werdinsky feigned a suicide attempt at Ballynahinch.
Martin published her first novel, St. Etienne, a Tale of the Vendean War, in 1845.
In 1847, she married a cousin, Colonel Arthur Gonne Bell. He took the name of Martin on marriage, by Royal Licence. In the same year, her father died of famine fever contracted while visiting his tenants in the Clifden workhouse.