Madeline grew up on a farm in Co Meath. She studied botany in TCD completing a MSc in vegetation history in 1984. After a few years travelling, including a year apprenticing on an organic farm in Maine, she moved to West Cork began farming there in 1986. The farm in Ardagh was managed as an organic dairy farm from 1987-1999, after which beef cattle and seeds became the main foci. She was involved in the food and farming group Growing Awareness, which re-started the market in Skibbereen, where she started selling seeds (as well as beef and vegetables) in 1999. She was a Stallholder there, until Covid struck in 2020.
In 2005 the business name Brown Envelope Seeds was registered, and half of the farm was planted in broad-leaved trees. Since then seed production has been the main source of income on the farm. Now that Madeline is an old age pensioner, she hopes to pass the seed business on to someone else, and support organisations such as ISSA in whatever ways she can.