Carlile, Anne Jane (1775–1864), temperance pioneer and philanthropist, was born 8 April 1775 in Rooskey, Co. Monaghan, the youngest child of David Hamill , a farmer and linen merchant, and Martha Hamill (née Armstrong). Both her father and her brother John were connected with the United Irish movement. In 1800 she married Rev. Francis Carlile (1775?–1811), the presbyterian minister for Bailieboro and Corraneary, Co. Cavan, with whom she had six daughters and one son. To supplement the family's income, she opened a drapery shop in her home at Bailieboro, which proved very successful. After the death of her husband she abandoned her business and moved to Derry with her family. There she remained for the next fifteen years, drawing rents from properties that had belonged to her late husband; this legacy left her financially independent for the remainder of her life. Between June 1812 and Febuary 1814 two of her daughters died, and following the family's removal to Dublin (1826), her son Francis was killed while climbing Powerscourt waterfall.
In Dublin Carlile became actively involved in philanthropic work. As a member of the Female Gaol Committee she visited Dublin's prisons, and accompanied Elizabeth Fry on her fact-finding mission to the city in 1827. Her work with convicts convinced her that alcohol was the root cause of many social problems and led to her involvement in the temperance cause. In 1830 she opened a temperance society in Poolbeg Street, which catered primarily for ex-convicts and sailors; when she moved to Cootehill, Co. Cavan, where her sister had settled, she founded another temperance society in 1834. The main targets for her temperance crusade were women and children. Though she initially found public speaking stressful, it was through addressing women's associations and Sunday school groups that she gained confidence. By 1840 she had begun to correspond with the catholic temperance campaigner, Fr Theobald Mathew (qv), who encouraged her projects. In that year she made the first of many visits to Scotland, where she spoke to Edinburgh convicts awaiting transportation and at a Glasgow temperance rally.
In the years that followed Carlile made regular visits to Britain to establish and promote temperance societies. She is probably best known for her role in the foundation of the children's temperance association the Band of Hope (1847) in Leeds with the Rev. Jabez Tunnicliff, a baptist minister. She was also a frequent visitor to Belfast. Founder of the city's Victoria Temperance Society (1841), in 1854 she played an influential role in the closure of many of its most disorderly public houses. For many years she participated in the reclamation of prostitutes in Dublin, Belfast, and Ballymena, and was involved in the establishment of one of Dublin's earliest asylums for prostitutes. She wrote several tracts, including The reformed family of Ballymena and John Miller, the reformed sailor, which were widely used by temperance activists. Little Mary, or, A daughter's love provides an account of a child of an alcoholic mother, who was brought up for some time by Carlile and her daughters. She died 14 March 1864 in Dublin and was buried in Mount Jerome cemetery.