Born Sophie Catherine Theresa Mary Peirce-Evans in Knockaderry, County Limerick, near the town of Newcastle West.

His daughter was taken to the home of her grandfather in Newcastle West, County Limerick where she was brought up by two maiden aunts, who discouraged her passion for sports.

After schooldays in Rochelle School, Cork; Princess Garden Belfast and St Margaret's Hall on Mespil Road in Dublin, where she played hockey and tennis, Sophie enrolled in the Royal College of Science for Ireland on Merrion Street (now Government Buildings).

During World War I, she spent two years as a despatch rider, based in England and later France, where she had her portrait painted by Sir John Lavery.

By then, she had married the first of her three husbands and as Sophie Mary Eliott-Lynn, was one of the founders of the Women's Amateur Athletic Association after her move from her native Ireland to London in 1922, following a brief sojourn in Aberdeen.

[8] In 1925, she published a coaching manual Athletics for women and girls, which advised on basic training and was also a delegate to the International Olympic Committee, the same year that she took her first flying lessons.

In 1926 she again represented the United Kingdom at javelin at the 1926 Women's World Games in Gothenburg, coming fourth, with a throw of 44.63 metres.

[10] "Britain's Lady Lindy," as she was known in the United States, made front-page news as the first pilot, male or female, to fly a small open-cockpit aircraft from Cape Town to London (Croydon Aerodrome).

Before her accident Lady Heath applied for American citizenship, intending to remain in the USA where she had made a good living on the lecture circuit and as an agent for Cirrus Engines.

[citation needed] In January 1930 she filed for a divorce from Heath in Reno, Nevada, United States and was awarded a decree nisi in May of the same year.

[24] In the previous years, with alcoholism now a serious problem, she had left Ireland and her husband for England and had made a number of appearances in court on charges relating to drunkenness.