Mary Daly (Australian writer)
Australian writer and humanitarian (1896-1983)
Dame Mary Dora Daly, (née MacMahon; 24 August 1896 – 11 June 1983) was an Australian writer, humanitarian and charity worker.
Biography
Mary Dora MacMahon was born in Cootamundra, New South Wales, 24 August 1896. Her parents were Thomas Patrick MacMahon, a solicitor, and his wife Mary Ellen (née O'Donnell). She was educated at Loreto convent schools in Normanhurst, New South Wales and Ballarat, Victoria.
On 3 January 1923, at St Canice's Church, Darlinghurst, she married John Joseph Daly (died 1953), a physician and a nephew of the founder of St Vincent's Hospital, Mother Berchmans Daly. The Dalys had two children, John and Marie.
With the outbreak of World War II, Daly was the only woman on the executive of the Catholic Welfare Organisation, founded in Melbourne in 1939 by Archbishop Mannix. She became the CWO's president two years later, in 1941.
She was also affiliated with:
Member, National Council, Australian Red Cross Society (ARCS)
Executive Member, Council of the Victorian Division, ARCS
Fund-raiser, Caritas Christi Hospice
First woman president (1966–75), Australian Catholic Relief
Foundation member (president 1975–77), Ryder-Cheshire Foundation (Australia).
Writings
Cinty and the laughing jackasses and other children's stories (1961)
Timmy's Christmas surprise (1967)
Holidays at Hillydale: a story for children about a family's holiday spent on an Australian sheep station (1973)
Catholic Welfare Organisation: its work for the men and women of the Services during World War II, September 1939 - June 1948
Death
Dame Mary Daly died at Fitzroy, Victoria, aged 86, on 11 June 1983.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Mary Daly (Australian writer)” is australian writer and humanitarian (1896-1983). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mary, Daly and Australian, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 16, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6779290. VIAF identifies the subject as 36414440. The Library of Congress control number is nb99055906. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1896, 1983, 1923 and 1953.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mary Daly (Australian writer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.