From a young age she attended the ladies' gallery of the House of Commons, while mixing a busy social life with charitable works.
[1] She attended lectures in Old English and literature at King's College, London from late 1882 to 1884,[2] and began to learn Irish in 1893.
[3] Dillon's father supported land reform in Ireland, chaired the evicted tenants commission in 1892, and was a huge influence on her politics.
She made her first political reference on 25 February 1883 when she noted the arrest of the Invincibles, and she then regularly commented on land reform.
In October 1886, she met John Dillon, and began to follow the Plan of Campaign so that she could discuss it with him during his visits to the Mathew house in London.
Dillon ran the business successfully, while also carrying out duties as a politician's wife such as opening the Belfast ladies' branch of the United Irish League in June 1905.