Fran McIlroy is the sister of Fiona McIlroy, who also contributed to the collection Warm Corners, along with their mother May Morris (May Cecily McIlroy) and sister-in-law Debra Foskey. McIlroy had some articles published in the student paper Newswit (1980), and she performed and wrote with Pipi Storm Theatre in Education from 1981 to 1984. She had a short story published in And So Say All of Us (1985), and has also read from her work-in-progress (a novella with the working title 'Fizzy Drinks') on radio 2-SER FM (1985).
Some of McIlroy's articles were published in the Queensland environmental magazine Eco Echo (1998), and she performed three-minute comic commentaries, 'Over the Moon', for the Community Broadcast Association of Australia, which were relayed to 92 regional and rural stations from 1999 to 2003. She performed with the Solidarity Choir from 1989, at social and political events, in pubs and at demonstrations, festivals and celebrations. She attained a Graduate Diploma in Gerontology in 1998, and worked as a respite carer supporting older people and people with disability in their homes.
