Baptised Belinda Molony to Francis and Catherine Maloney of Tulla, County Clare, she took the name Mary Xavier upon taking her vows as a Presentation Sister at Galway in 1825.
All were fans of bluegrass and old-timey music, and they began performing together, often with others, at Harvard, appearing regularly on the Harvard student radio station WHRB and becoming regular performers at Tulla's Coffeehouse in Harvard Square.
Tulla soon after started providing Skanska, a leading Swedish building company, with concrete reliefs used in building projects all over Europe.