She was born in Dublin, trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and built her career in Vienna. In 1938 Mary Dickenson-Auner (1880-1965) was banned from performing and teaching in the city she had made her home - because she held a British passport. Almost all her string quartets survive only in manuscript. For the first time, they are being made playable again.

From 25 November 2026, the Auner Quartett performs her Fourth String Quartet at the Vienna Musikverein, opening a cycle of four concerts titled "Jenseits vom tanzenden Wien" (Beyond Dancing Vienna). Daniel Auner, the quartet's first violinist and a relative of the composer, plays her own violin.

Her grandfather Hercules MacDonnell co-founded the Royal Irish Academy of Music. She studied under Émile Sauret in London and Otakar Ševčík in Prague, made her debut with the Czech Philharmonic in 1905, and in 1922 gave the Austrian premiere of Bartók's First Violin Sonata.