Mary Peisley (1718-1757, married name Mary Neale, sometimes misspelled Paisley) was an Irish Quaker writer.

Biography

Peisley was born 19 January 1718 at Ballymore,

County Kildare County Kildare () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster and is part of the Eastern and Midland Region. It is named after the town of Kildare. Kildare County Council is the Local gove ...

: her mother Rachel ( Burton) was from Mannin,

County Tipperary County Tipperary () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary (tow ...

, and her father John from Baltiboys,

County Wicklow County Wicklow ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The last of the traditional 32 counties, having been formed as late as 1606 in Ireland, 1606, it is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the Provinces ...

. The family moved in 1723 to a farm at Paddock,

Mountrath Mountrath () is a small town in County Laois, Ireland. The town lies on the R445 midway between Dublin and Limerick, exactly 96.5 km (60 mi) from both cities. The town was bypassed by the M7 motorway in 2010, leading to a significant ...

County Laois County Laois ( ; ) is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and in the province of Leinster. It was known as Queen's County from 1556 to 1922. The modern county takes its name from Loígis, a medieval kingdom. Hist ...

(then known as "Queen's County"), where she was based for the rest of her life until her marriage. She had little formal education and entered domestic service, until at the age of 26 she began to speak at Quaker meetings. Peisley preached around Ireland with Elizabeth Tomey in 1746, and toured England in 1748-50, riding in 29 months and attending 525 meetings. She toured Ireland again in 1751. At an annual London meeting, she, Catherine Payton and four others proposed that a separate women's group should be formed with the Quakers. This was accepted, but not until 1784. Peisley travelled to America in 1753-1756 with Catherine Payton. They rode "often through thinly inhabited country, braving dangerous creeks, swamps, and wild animals", visiting North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New England, and Pennsylvania. During their tour Peisley noted a "low state of discipline" among Quakers in America, and saw a need for reformation. Her letters and records of this journey "were to be seen 70 years later as prophesying the separations that took place within the Religious Society of Friends in 1827 and 1828". Peisley spoke against

slavery Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

and held meetings with African Americans, writing to Quakers in Virginia in 1754 that "one thing the friends here ... were in the practice of, which gave us considerable pain ... that is, buying and keeping of slaves which we could not reconcile with the golden rule of doing unto all men as we would they should do unto us". On 17 March 1757 at Mountrath she married Samuel Neale (1729-1792), who had first heard her preach in Cork in about 1750 and had subsequently become a Quaker minister. She died three days later of "cholic" and is buried in the Quaker cemetery at

. Her widower Samuel assembled and published a collection of her writings.

Biography

Selected publications

References

Further reading