 The daughter of the keeper of the old Ferry Boat tavern, Abbey Street, Dublin, she married a lodger in his house, a Captain Gregory, commander of a vessel engaged in the trade between Dublin and Bordeaux.After the death by drowning of her husband, followed by the death of her father, she went to London in 1753.She became an actress first under the name of Mrs Gregory, and then as Mrs Fitzhenry after her second marriage to Edward Fitzhenry, an Irish barrister, with whom she had two children.