Olivia Connolly, née Knight, was the daughter of 'a professional man', according to Sir Chas. Gavan Duffy in his introduction to Thomasine's Poems: Wild Flowers. Duffy wrote that her father's premature death left the Knight family inadequately provided for and she lived with her mother and brother in Castlebar (Ireland). Connolly became a teacher and sometimes wrote spirited letters to the Nation. She also contributed tales, poems and translations to the Nation as well as to the Fireside Magazine and the Catholic Guardian. By Duffy's account Connolly left Ireland for Australia in 1860 on the ship Erin-go-Bragh; however, in his Bibliography of Queensland Verse, Hornibrook dates her arrival in Queensland as 11 August 1862. Duffy says that Dr James Quinn of Dublin, newly appointed Bishop of Brisbane, had enlisted Connolly's help to take charge of a teacher training school in the colony. The school did not eventuate so Connolly accepted an appointment at the Normal School in Brisbane. She later moved to Ipswich and in 1869 she married Thomas Hope Connolly, a journalist whom she met on the voyage from Ireland. After his death she taught in a country school near Warwick.