Biography

Isabella was the seventh child of Agnes Louisa Carney and Thomas Ireland.

Bella was born on 4 May 1873 in Dunedin, exactly ten years to the day from the death of her elder sister Isabella Ann Ireland. She was named after her grandmother, and her nickname was probably also that of her grandmother, since James Tobin Ireland referred to his mother as “Bella.” But the younger Bella was lame, due to infantile paralysis. She must have been highly regarded by her mother, whom she seems to have cared for almost alone in the last years of her life, and her older sister Jessie, since both left her large bequests in their wills.

She first appears on the 1900 City of Dunedin Electoral Roll performing domestic duties, but was also a music teacher from 1902 to at least 1920. She died on 19 October 1945, aged 72, at the Public Hospital, Dunedin, of congestive heart failure and was buried in the Thomas Ireland family plot in the Dunedin Northern Cemetery on 22 October.

Others buried here: Isabella’s parents Thomas and Agnes Louisa Ireland, and her siblings Agnes Louisa, Jessie, Thomas and Lilian.