Biography
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 grandfather was Richard Martin (M.P.) (1754–1834).
Her first novel, St. Etienne, a tale of the Vendean War, was published in 1845.
Educated at home and by herself, she was 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; upon her refusal of marriage, he feigned a suicide attempt at Ballynahinch. In 1847, she married Colonel Arthur Gonne Bell, her cousin, who 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.
Read more about this topic: Mary Letitia Martin
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