A remarkable woman in her own right, Mary Anne was the sister of Henry Joy McCracken, who as a United Irishman suffered imprisonment in Kilmainhaim, was released, then rearrested and hanged in the fateful year of 1798. She stood by her brother throughout this grim time but refused to be broken by his death, and went on to lead a many sided, active life well into Victorian times. Able, energetic, philanthropic, she was involved in public works and charitable bodies and was horrified by the persistence of slavery in the American South. She represents a radical Christian strain of middle class Ulster life which did much to make Belfast, and the province in general, prosperous and self respecting in the mid century.