[1] After passing her Irish intermediate certificate, O'Connor joined her family in Scotland, and attended Dunfermline High School.
She worked for Fife Teaching Authority briefly, but returned to Northern Ireland, where her family had settled following her father's retirement in January 1927.
Inspectors rated her repeatedly as "highly efficient", but some parents objected to her focus on nature studies and generally progressive educational ethos.
Mary Doherty invokes her childhood in County Donegal, with a character visiting a ruined coastguard station in Dunfanaghy and comments on how the local Protestant families left the area after the creation Northern Ireland.
[1] From 1937 to 1940, O'Connor corresponded with General Hugh Montgomery, after she joined the Irish Association for Cultural, Economic and Social Relations.
She supported Montgomery in a number of newspaper controversies, which included one against her sister Theresa on the historic veracity of the work of William Edward Hartpole Lecky.
Her belief was that a reunification of Ireland would result in civil war, and that Irish integration into the British Commonwealth was ultimately inevitable.
A play of the same name was later staged in 1944 by the Ulster Group Theatre (UGT), with only fragments of the script now being held by the Linen Hall Library, Belfast.
She wrote for BBC Radio Ulster, with short stories including First love in February 1961 and The parable in reverse.