This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by . Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Born: 11 November 1869, Ireland
Died: 25 May 1949
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: Minnie Spaight Conyers
Conyers, (Minnie) Dorothea Spaight (1869–1949), novelist, was born 11 November 1869, in Fedamore, Co. Limerick, one of twin daughters of Colonel John Blood-Smith of Fedamore and Ardsollus, Co. Clare, and Amelia Blood-Smith (née Spaight) of Derry Castle, Co. Tipperary. Her family were protestant landed gentry, but her father died while she was still a young child and the family’s fortunes went into decline. She later wrote of the political and social turmoil in Ireland, which marred her youth, as the ‘bad times’ and recalled ‘going to church and seeing a fox nailed on the door’. In February 1892 she married Lieutenant-colonel Charles Conyers of Castletown Conyers, Co. Limerick, with whom she had a son and a daughter. They lived in various locations in England and Ireland. A member of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, he was killed fighting in May 1915. Two years later she married Captain John White (d. 1940) of Nantenan, Ballingrane, Co. Limerick, where she lived for the remainder of her life.
Dorothea Conyers’s first novel, The thorn bit, published in 1900, was followed by more than forty popular novels and collections, among them Peter’s pedigree (1904), The boy, some horses and a girl (1908), The conversion of Con Cregan (1909), and A lady of discretion (1939); her last book, Kicking foxes, appeared in 1948. Her fiction, which generally focuses on the romantic trials and tribulations of the Irish sporting gentry, is littered with garrison officers, horse dealers, and loyal peasant retainers, the characterisation of the last often bordering on nostalgic caricature; in 1911 she published a historical novel, For Henri of Navarre. A keen sportswoman, she was also fond of opera. She died 25 May 1949 in Limerick.