Dorothea Conyers

Born Dorothea Spaight Blood-Smith in Fedamore, County Limerick, she came from an Anglo-Irish landed family and grew up in a world that later shaped much of her fiction. Her novels are closely associated with Irish hunting, horses, and the social life of the sporting set, and readers often remember them for their energy, humor, and strong sense of place.

Her first novel, The Thorn Bit, appeared in 1900, and it was followed by more than forty novels and collections. Among the better-known titles are Peter's Pedigree, The Boy, Some Horses and a Girl, and The Conversion of Con Cregan. Her last book, Kicking Foxes, was published in 1948, just a year before her death.

Conyers died in Limerick in 1949. Although some reference sources list her as born in 1873, more detailed biographical sources place her birth on November 11, 1869, and describe a long writing life rooted in Irish rural society and sport.