This book outlines the lives of six female members of the Irish Ascendancy, and describes their involvement with educational provision for poor children in Ireland at the end of the long eighteenth century. It argues that these women were moved by empathy and by a sense of duty, and that they were motivated by political considerations, pragmatism and, especially, religious belief. The book highlights the women’s agency and locates their contribution in international and literary contexts; and by exploring sources and evidence not previously considered, it generates an enhanced understanding of Ascendancy women’s involvement with the provision of elementary education for poor Irish children. This book will appeal to scholars and researchers in the fields of Education and History of Education. It will also have broad appeal for those interested in Gender and Women’s Studies, in Georgian Ireland and in the history of Ascendancy families and estates.

This book outlines the lives of six female members of the Irish Ascendancy, and describes their involvement with educational provision for poor children in Ireland at the end of the long eighteenth century. It argues that these women were moved by empathy and by a sense of duty, and that they were motivated by political considerations, pragmatism and, especially, religious belief. The book highlights the women’s agency and locates their contribution in international and literary contexts; and by exploring sources and evidence not previously considered, it generates an enhanced understanding of Ascendancy women’s involvement with the provision of elementary education for poor Irish children. This book will appeal to scholars and researchers in the fields of Education and History of Education. It will also have broad appeal for those interested in Gender and Women’s Studies, in Georgian Ireland and in the history of Ascendancy families and estates.

Why do we send children to school? Who should take responsibility for children's health and education? Should girls and boys be educated separately or together? These questions provoke much contemporary debate, but also have a longer, often-overlooked history. Mary Hatfield explores these questions and more in this comprehensive cultural history of childhood in nineteenth-century Ireland. Many modern ideas about Irish childhood have their roots in the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century, when an emerging middle-class took a disproportionate role in shaping the definition of a 'good' childhood. This study deconstructs several key changes in medical care, educational provision, and ideals of parental care. It takes an innovative holistic approach to the middle-class child's social world, by synthesising a broad base of documentary, visual, and material sources, including clothes, books, medical treatises, religious tracts, photographs, illustrations, and autobiographies. It offers invaluable new insights into Irish boarding schools, the material culture of childhood, and the experience of boys and girls in education.

The first biographical study of Nano Nagle, the foundress of he Presentation order of nuns, that positions her within Irish social history, and assesses her vast international legacy. Nano Nagle: The Life and the Education Legacy draws on archival materials from three continents, providing a compelling account of how one woman's extraordinary life challenged social constraints and championed social justice and equality. Leading education historian, Deirdre Raftery, has produced not only a vital new biographical study of an exceptional Irish woman, but also a study of how thousands of Irish women joined the Presentation order of nuns and taught in their schools all over the world. Within that is the story of the Irish female diaspora in Newfoundland, India, North America, England, Australia, Africa and the Philippines. Nano Nagle: The Life and the Education Legacy throws opens a new window on an unknown aspect of Irish social history, while also demonstrating Ireland's significant contribution to the global history of female education.

We Are But Women sets the history of Irish women in the context of the broad sweep of Irish history, dealing even-handedly with the diverse traditions of unionism and nationalism. Through an examination of exemplar individuals and organisations, the book traces the growth of Irish awareness of such `women's issues' as emancipation, divorce and abortion. Above all, it acknowledges the key role played by women in finding a solution to the Irish Question.

This volume offers fresh perspectives on the political, military, religious, social, cultural, intellectual, economic, and environmental history of early modern Ireland and situates these discussions in global and comparative contexts. The opening chapters focus on 'Politics' and 'Religion and War' and offer a chronological narrative, informed by the re-interpretation of new archives. The remaining chapters are more thematic, with chapters on 'Society', 'Culture', and 'Economy and Environment', and often respond to wider methodologies and historiographical debates. Interdisciplinary cross-pollination - between, on the one hand, history and, on the other, disciplines like anthropology, archaeology, geography, computer science, literature and gender and environmental studies - informs many of the chapters. The volume offers a range of new departures by a generation of scholars who explain in a refreshing and accessible manner how and why people acted as they did in the transformative and tumultuous years between 1550 and 1730.

The Famine Diaspora and Irish American Women’s Writing considers the works of eleven North American female authors who wrote for or descended from the Irish Famine generation: Anna Dorsey, Christine Faber, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Mother Jones, Kate Kennedy, Margaret Dixon McDougall, Mary Meaney, Alice Nolan, Fanny Parnell, Mary Anne Sadlier, and Elizabeth Hely Walshe. This collection examines the ways the writings of these women contributed significantly to the construction of Irish North-American identities, and played a crucial role in the dissemination of Famine memories transgenerationally as well as transnationally. The included annotated excerpts from these women writers’ works and the accompanying essays by prominent international scholars offer insights on the sociopolitical position of the Irish in North America, their connections with the homeland, women’s activities in transnational (often Catholic) publishing networks and women writers’ mediation of Ireland’s cultural heritage. Furthermore, the volume illustrates the generic variety of Irish American women’s writing of the Famine generation, which comprises political treatises, novels, short stories and poetry, and bears witness to these female authors’ profound engagement with political and social issues, such as the conditions of the poor and woman’s vote.