John Hewitt’s claim to ‘no female bards’ as part of the revival of what he called the rhyming weaver poets tradition narrowed the scope of scholarly interest. A variety of publications have provided a range of in-depth studies on the impact of Robert Burns in Ireland, and have done much to challenge the latter claim. However, the presence and output of Ulster-Scots women writers within this wider area of scholarship remains little known. By analysing poetry from three writers – Olivia Elder, Sarah Leech and Margaret Dixon McDougall – this article aims to advance several lesser-known eighteenth and nineteenth-century female Irish poets, add depth to the study of Ulster-Scots women’s writing, and provide a novel perspective on the relationship between Robert Burns and Ireland. Elder, who was active as a writer in the 1770s, adapts works from the eighteenth-century song tradition to satirize ‘Old Light’ Presbyterian beliefs in Ireland, arguably anticipating Burns attacks on Presbyterian church orthodoxy. Leech was a spinner living and writing in north-west Ulster in the early part of the nineteenth century, while Dixon came from a wealthy family in Co. Antrim, and emigrated to Canada in the 1840s, where she went on to become a pioneering writer and journalist. Both employ Standard Habbie in verses that ostensibly emulate Burns poems – ‘To a Mouse’ and ‘Address to the Deil’ – but which on closer inspection provide a vehicle to ruminate on moral, religious, and philosophical matters that were relevant to the unique circumstances of each author.