Despite her own financial straights, she sought to support her brother William Drennan and his new family in Dublin where his medical practice suffered as a result of his political notoriety.
McTier reported to her brother that despite "the appearance of unanimity", she saw a "party forming under the pretext of keeping out unmarried women", which she believed was attempting to raise opposition against "those who are now deemed democrats".
[9] When in the same year McTier established a small school in her home for poor girls she began to read more of the literature on women's education by female writers.
[15] In April 1795 McTier and Lady Harriet Skeffington proposed a more ambitious scheme to a town meeting, a residential school for girls with food and clothing provided.
A letter to the Northern Star signed "The Bucks" sarcastically declaimed: "We love girls educated above their rank, and their heads filled with ideas beyond their means.
[17][18] McTier's forty-year correspondence with her brother William begins in 1776 when he was studying medicine in Edinburgh and continued as he moved, with his obstetrics practice, from Belfast to Newry and Dublin.
[20] Martha McTier was "aware of the difficulties involved in asserting a political identity independent of her brother or her husband":[21] "women connected with men whose side is known", she commented, "ought to be very cautious, as they are supposed to be only echoes".
"[22] In an attempt to avoid controversy in Belfast's politically-divided social circles, she would not discuss politics when attending local coteries, assemblies and card parties.
[2] (Already in May 1794 she had received a threat, apparently written on Post Office paper, warning that if she continued with her "high flown letters" she would wind up "a matron to a madhouse in Botany Bay").
For the postmaster's benefit she wrote a letter to her brother denying any knowledge of or involvement in the United Irishwomen and reflected that "it is strange that an obscure name, and female, could be noticed by strangers", though, she added, "I flatter myself I am not insignificant enough however to be termed a neutral".
In 1795 she wrote approvingly to her brother of Belfast's Jacobin Club (which included United Irishmen), describing it as composed of "persons and rank long kept down [who] now come forward with a degree of information that might shame their betters".
[36][37] At a time when philanthropic women "were attempting to tame the masses with soothing moral tracts", James Winder Good noted that McTier "plumped for real education and knowledge of public affairs".
In 1795 she wrote to her brother: "So much have I gained by newspapers, and so ardently have I seen them sought for and enjoyed by the lower orders, that I intend to institute for their good a gratis newsroom with fire and candles, a scheme which you might laugh at, but if followed in the country towns might have a wonderful effect".
She counselled Irishmen to "remain sulky, grave, prudent, and watchful, not subdued into tame servility, poverty and contempt, not satisfied till time blunts their chains and feelings, but ardent to seize the possible moment of national revenge"[44] Yet, her correspondence reveals that she shared the concern that rapidly was to reconcile many northern Presbyterians to the Union.
As a Belfast Protestant, McTier was conscious of a loss of the "easy sense of security" in numbers as the town's industrial growth drew in Catholics from the rural hinterland.
On hearing that they had staged a "singing procession" in the street she confessed to her brother: "I begin to fear these people, and think like the Jews they will regain their native land.