Madge Donohue was married to Irish journalist and war correspondent Martin Donohue (d. 1927), whom she appears to have met whilst he was working in Sydney during the 1890s. She was at one point principal of Claremont College, Randwick; however she resigned in 1899 to go to England, where she and Donohue were subsequently married. In England she became an occasional correspondent for Australian newspapers, and she also attended the 1904 Women's Congress in Berlin as a proxy on behalf of the New South Wales Women's Council. In later life she became involved in spirit photography. Her brother was the Australian linguist William Tilly (1860-1935).
