The Graisberry Girls; Mary (2)

inscription in the cover of

Inscription in the cover of a book dedicated to Mary by James Templeton. Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

Mary Kennedy married Daniel Graisberry in 1765. The couple were married for twenty years until his death in 1785. She was mother to thirteen children all of whom she outlived, she survived her son Daniel by just one week.

As a young widow still in her thirties and possibly with some of her family dependant on her she took over her husband’s business. With the help of her son in law, Richard Campbell, taken into the business when he married her daughter Elizabeth, she took her late husband’s place in the business. With that she made an announcement to the printing world that she, Mary Graisberry, widow would carry on with business as usual, a tough decision for a woman at the time. Mary Graisberry was by no means the first woman in the Irish book trade, in fact she was one of many, usually widows who took over the business when their husbands died. Years later her daughter in Law Ruth would follow suit, when she was widowed too.

It did not take too long for tragedy to strike in the Graisberry family again, when Mary’s daughter Elizabeth. She was quite young and married only a short time, so it is possible that she died in childbirth. A touching gesture James Templeton, a poet and possibly a family friend dedicated a book to Mary. The book was entitled A Poetical Epistle to Mrs. Graisberry: On the Sudden Death of Her Daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Campbell.

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To the memory of Mrs Elizabeth Campbell. Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

Mary continued as administrator of the company until her son Daniel, Emily’s great grandfather took over when he came of age (twenty-one) in 1797. She lived on till her mid seventies dying on 8th June 1822, at Clare St. Dublin.

 Sources
A Dictionary of Members of the Dublin Book Trade 1550-1800 By Mary Pollard, Bibliographical Society (Great Britain, p 248-50
Irish Booklore: A Galley of Pie: Women in the Irish Book Trades Author(s): Vincent Kinane
Source: The Linen Hall Review, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Winter, 1991), pp. 10-13 Published by: Linen Hall Library. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20534214 Accessed: 07-05-2015 14:24 UTC
Templeton, James. A Poetical Epistle to Mrs. Graisberry: On the Sudden Death of Her Daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Campbell. By James Templeton. Dublin: Printed in the year, 1795.
Dublin Evening Packet and Correspondent 11 June 1842. P 3