Charlotte Grace O'Brien

Charlotte Grace O'Brien (1845–1909) was an Irish writer and social reformer, the daughter of William Smith O'Brien, the Young Ireland leader transported for the rising of 1848. She published a novel, Light and Shade, in 1878, a collection of Lyrics in 1886, and plays and essays, but her chief work was practical: shocked by the conditions endured by emigrant women on the Atlantic steamers, she opened a lodging house for them at Queenstown, traveled steerage herself to document abuses, and helped found a mission for Irish immigrant girls in New York. She became a Catholic in 1887 and spent her last years at Foynes on the Shannon, writing and gardening.