Daughter of Robert Tweeddale Breen, solicitor and Marie Freda Chamberlin, who served as a Victorian Liberal Senator in the Australian Parliament from 1962-68, she completed her secondary education at Firbank Church of England Girls' Grammar School, Brighton and her tertiary education at the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Laws in 1967. She worked as a solicitor in the family firm, R. T. Breen & Co. from 1967 and served as a Brighton City Councillor from 1973-76 before being elected to the Victorian Parliament in the same year.

On 25 October 1949 she married Vernon Ronald Patrick, law clerk. They had a son and a daughter.

Her community commitments included : member of the Consumer Affairs Council 1974-75, member of Brighton Technical School Council 1976-83, member of Firbank Council and Brighton Community Hospital committee of management 1976-80; member of the University of Melbourne Council 1979-83, Gardenvale Central School Council 1982-83; honorary solicitor to local organisations and a member of St Peter's Anglican Church, Brighton.

Sources used to compile this entry: Carrying on the Fight: Women Candidates in Victorian Parliamentary Elections, Australian Women's Archives Project, 2008, http://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/cws/home.html; Browne, Geoff, Biographical register of the Victorian Parliament, Government Printing Office on behalf of the Library Committee, Parliament of Victoria, Melbourne, 1985, 229 pp; Draper, W J (ed.), Who's Who in Australia 1983, 24 edn, The Herald and Weekly Times, Melbourne, 1983, 960 pp; Fitzherbert, Margaret, 'Leader in push for equal opportunity', The Age, 14 June 2011, p. 16.