Elizabeth Emmet Lenox-Conyngham was born Elizabeth Emmet Holmes in Dublin in 1800. She was the only surviving child of
Robert Holmes and
Mary Anne Holmes (née Emmet). Her maternal uncle was
Robert Emmet. She married George Lenox Conyngham of
Springhill House (1796–1887), chief clerk in the Foreign Office in London, in early 1827. The couple had a son, George Lenox-Conyngham known as Gino (d. 1866), and a daughter, Mary Ann Grace Louisa Lenox-Conyngham known as May (d. 1907). Lenox-Conyngham published her first book in 1833,
The Dream, and Other Poems, which included some poems from her mother as well as translations from the German poet
Friedrich von Matthisson. These translations received praise from the editor of the
Dublin University Magazine, Charles Stuart Stanford. It was his contention that "perhaps, the first lady in this country who made German literature her study." In the years that followed she published three more volumes:
Hella and other poems (1836),
Horae poeticae: lyrical and other poems (1859), and
Eiler and Helvig: a Danish legend in verse (1863). == References ==