‘Wisdom it was I loved and searched for her from my youth. I resolved to have her as my companion. I fell in love with her beauty ….’

At the funeral mass for Margaret MacCurtain, her grandnephew, Michael, read the first reading from the Book of Wisdom, a moving and appropriate text with which to begin a celebration of Margaret's life. The words carried an added significance as Michael's reading emphasised that wisdom was represented in the biblical verse as female.

This article assesses our much-expanded view of the texts produced by early modern women in Ireland, surveying what is available to present-day researchers and considering emerging methodologies for the analysis of early modern female voices. The range of genres with which we now know early modern women engaged owes much to feminist literary historians’ capacious approach to defining literature, expanding beyond traditionally elite genres (drama, poetry, fiction) to encompass writing in all its forms. Thus, the present corpus includes letters and petitions, life writing, devotional prose, legal depositions, as well as all kinds of verse and song, in multiple languages. Moreover, where the primary evidence in Ireland sometimes seems sparse, international perspectives have illuminated the currents of women's writing. Interpretative paradigms from other fields — book history and the history of reading, culinary and medical history, network analysis — are being applied to yield fresh insights about this material. The question of how early modern Ireland was experienced by women has been explored in studies that address such texts as articulations of subjectivity, in the light of the history of emotions. The wide range of situations and genres of women's writing in early modern Ireland is now firmly evident, inspiring a host of new approaches.

Over the last decade, network analysis has developed as an approach within digital humanities as a wider array of tools has become available to humanities scholars, and these approaches are now beginning to make an impact on the disciplines of history and English. This article presents an overview of different ways of approaching network analysis. It assesses recent projects to see how they accounted for gender in their datasets and what can be learnt about early modern women from these projects. It then looks at how projects in Ireland are engaging with network analysis, discussing the approaches used by RECIRC and introducing MACMORRIS's analysis of the Dictionary of Irish biography (D.I.B.) and the Bardic Poetry Database (B.P.D.), looking at how the latter is attempting to overcome the unconscious gender bias inherent in the D.I.B.'s selection of early modern lives from the period between 1541 and 1660. Finally, it points to some of the wider issues we as scholars face when engaging with this methodology, such as access to the required training and collaboration, arguing that while these are not unique challenges to the study of gender history in Ireland, they are important debates that can enhance scholarship in the field.

In ‘An Agenda for women's history in Ireland, 1500–1900’ (1992), Margaret MacCurtain, Mary O'Dowd and Maria Luddy noted that research on convents and women religious (nuns/sisters) in Ireland was beginning to open up in the 1980s. They also suggested areas that merited the attention of scholars, including the experience of vowed religious life by women, issues of class and power within Irish convents, and the role of nuns in Irish society. This article examines historiographical developments, with a view to seeing whether or not scholars rose to the challenges posed in 1992. Additionally, it considers areas that still demand attention.

It is rare that a book's dedication is quite so apposite to its theme as Maria Luddy and Mary O'Dowd's in their new history of marriage, which reads: ‘For Mary Cullen and Margaret MacCurtain who began it all.’ Indeed, they did, and this tour de force is a fitting testament to the significance of that women's history project started in the 1970s, which has ‘paved the way for all of us who engage with Irish gender history’ (p. xiii). Luddy and O'Dowd, both pioneers in the field in their own right, set themselves the not inconsiderable task of producing ‘an extended study of the history of heterosexual marriage on the island of Ireland from 1660–1925’ (p. 1). The result is a rich, colourful, at times playful, but also often depressing, five-hundred-and-fifty-page study of the most popular sexual bond between men and women in history — marriage. Indeed, that complex institution was obviously on the historical mind because Diane Urquhart's erudite study of Irish divorce from 1800 to 1997 and Sonja Tiernan's deftly navigated history of the marriage equality campaign in Ireland were also published in 2020.

An analysis of the multiple publications relating to the career of Hugh O'Neill that appeared during the middle decades of the twentieth century reveals the extent to which authors who were then writing about the past permitted their interpretations to be influenced by the politics and prejudices of their own time. It is then demonstrated that the various positions then adopted by competing authors had been influenced also by polemics from the past. A study of the place accorded to Hugh O'Neill by authors writing in the nineteenth, eighteenth, seventeenth and even the sixteenth century shows that they too were divided over whether O'Neill should be considered the forger of an Irish nation or a champion of Catholicism, or an ingrate who had betrayed the crown that had rescued him from obscurity. This leads to a discussion of academic writing of more recent decades and the efforts of scholars who have engaged on fresh research to better comprehend what motivated Hugh O'Neill at various junctures in his career, even as he remains one of the more enigmatic personalities in Ireland's history.

This article examines the causes and consequences of the 1922 postal strike which was the first nationwide strike to occur following the establishment of the Irish Free State. In the eyes of the government, the dispute was as much a threat to its authority as that posed by anti-Treatyies, and it was resolved to crush both. The significance of the postal dispute within the annals of Irish labour history has been obscured and overshadowed by the civil war. The strike was not only about a demand for a fair and reasonable wage: it also raised issues relating to workers’ rights, including the right to strike; government tactics, including the harassment and intimidation of workers by the military; victimisation; political propriety and probity; the abuse of government power; and the role and effectiveness of the labour movement. Furthermore, the historical collision of both the postal strike and the civil war produced strong emotions among all parties to this labour dispute – the postal workers, postal unions and the fledgling government. The coincidence of the dispute and the civil war determined the government's attitude towards labour unrest, labour affairs and labour relations until Fianna Fáil succeeded Cumann na nGaedheal in 1932.

This paper explores the themes of abduction, patronage, female wealth and marital relationships through their intersection in the life of Derbforgaill (d. 1193), whose abduction in 1152 sparked a chain of events that contributed to the English invasion of Ireland. Derbforgaill is also remembered for her donations to Mellifont in 1157, during the consecration of its ‘church of the monks’, and to the construction of a nuns’ church in Clonmacnoise in 1167. Focusing on the broader political context of these donations offers strong grounds for reconsideration of both Derbforgaill's and other women's experiences. Among the wider implications of this study must be the reconceptualisation of female political importance as functional through or in concert with marriage partners, rather than the natal family.

This article presents an edition and translation of an Irish didactic poem found in a large compilation of remedies, charms and prayers that was written in the early sixteenth century by the Roscommon medical scribe Conla Mac an Leagha. The contents of this poem, and of the treatise in which it occurs more generally, are of inherent interest for our understanding of the history of medical learning in medieval Ireland. However, the poem is also of particular significance due to the fact that its penultimate stanza, which invokes the authority of one ‘Colmán mac Oililla’, is attested in two much later sources that provide insight into the transmission and reception of medieval Irish medical texts in the early nineteenth century, as well as into the relationship between manuscript, print and material culture during that period. The two sources in question, one of which is a previously unprovenanced signboard now kept in the Wellcome Collection in London, can both be connected with the work of the Munster ‘herb doctor’ Michael Casey (1752?–1830/31), who in 1825 advertised the publication of a new herbal containing cures derived from much earlier Irish-language medical manuscripts.

In 1969 R.T.É.'s 7 Days dealt with the issue of illegal moneylending, claiming that Dublin was ‘a city of fear’ where 500 unlicensed moneylenders used violence as a tool to collect debts. The Fianna Fáil government rejected the suggestion that loan sharking was widespread and that Gardaí responses to it were ineffectual; a tribunal of inquiry was established to investigate 7 Days. Previous analyses situated these events within the context of government concerns over the influence of television journalism. This article takes a different approach, analysing moneylending ― rather than 7 Days ― within the context of the rediscovery of poverty during the 1960s. It examines how social and economic changes, including the growth of consumer credit and the re-housing of large numbers of Dubliners, combined to make illegal moneylending more visible. Historical accounts of Ireland in the 1960s have had a top down focus on economic policy and growth. Here, the focus is shifted to personal rather state finances to offer a more nuanced portrayal of a decade often understood as a boom one. Moreover, analysing the nature and conclusions of the tribunal lays bare the contemporary resistance to those attempting to reframe the problem of poverty.

This article offers a critical analysis of the representation of early modern popular violence provided by the 1641 depositions. Exploring the problems of how reported ‘speech’ was produced and recorded in the 1641 depositions, the article challenges the tendency within the depositions to represent violence as a spontaneous and immediate act, explicable by a racialised reading of Irish ‘barbarity’ and Catholic treachery. Exploiting a large cache of depositions and examinations in the relatively resource-rich urban context of Galway, it offers a micro-historical narrative of two brutal episodes of popular violence there in 1642 to reveal the complex histories and politics that might lie behind acts of violence in the Irish rising. Examining the local impact of the state's policies of anglicisation and Protestantisation, the paper recovers the prolonged, but ultimately unsuccessful, negotiations that preceded popular violence. Contextualizing the episodes, the article locates that violence in the more complex (and divided) politics of the city and in the radical challenges it brought to traditional structures of rule in Galway. Referencing the developing body of work on the politics of early modern crowd actions in Ireland, the article argues that the popular violence was political, both a consequence of and contributor to political change there.

Queer history is still in its infancy in Ireland, with political approaches and the more recent past, and the gay rights movement particularly, providing the primary focus so far. This article takes a different approach by investigating the everyday experiences, identities and policing of men who had sex with men in the early twentieth century. Using two extraordinary case studies from Belfast during the First World War, I explore different lives ― from youth to adulthood, sexual encounter to arrest, and trial to life afterwards. I argue that queer culture in Belfast shared aspects with other western metropolises, particularly in terms of urban cruising, payment for sex and relationships structured by class. Public responses too, from newspaper to courtroom, were articulated through transnational formulations of respectability and masculinity. At the same time, however, Belfast's queer men were shaped by their movement within a peculiarly Irish network of places, both in and beyond the country's borders. Religious and political structures specific to Ulster also affected how such men fared in the legal system and in their lives following their trials. By detailing both the similarities yet divergences of queer experience in Belfast, I thus aim to raise a new agenda for studying male sexuality in the north of Ireland.

This article examines the treatment of physical drill as a curricular subject in primary schools in the Irish Free State in the period from 1922 to 1937. In particular, it assesses the reasons why its status as an obligatory subject was reduced in the mid 1920s. It will show that the availability of facilities, resources and teaching staff with suitable qualifications were all considerations, while some teachers were not physically capable of teaching the subject in the early years of the Irish Free State. In addition, a strong emphasis on the Irish language and the view that a reduced curriculum was more beneficial to learning meant that some subjects, including physical drill, were deemed optional. However, the decision to reduce the subject's status had not been supported by everyone and it was mainly the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation which was behind the move. Following its reduction from an obligatory subject to an optional one as a result of a decision taken at the Second National Programme Conference in 1926, a lack of a clear policy on the subject became evident. By the early 1930s, the subject was receiving more attention from the Irish government, which made some efforts made to integrate the Czechoslovakian Sokol system into Irish schools. In examining conflicting views on how to implement the Sokol system, and the work of Lieutenant Joseph Tichy, the man recruited to develop it within the Irish army, this article also identifies the reasons why this method of physical training was not a success in Irish schools.

This article critically re-assesses Conor Cruise O'Brien's attitude to Northern Ireland between 1969 and 1977. It argues that O'Brien's most significant contribution to public life was the ability to deconstruct many aspects of Irish nationalism, specifically his rejection of the Irish state's irredentist claim over Northern Ireland. In doing so, it contends that O'Brien was one of the most important, and outspoken, champions of so-called ‘revisionist nationalism’ of his generation. The article examines three themes in relation to O'Brien's attitude to Northern Ireland: his attack on the Irish state's anti-partitionism; his rejection of Irish republican terrorism; and his support for the ‘principle of consent’ argument. The article illustrates that O'Brien was criticised in nationalist circles and accused of committing political heresy. Indeed, his willingness to challenge the attitude of most mainstream Irish politicians on Northern Ireland invariably left him an isolated figure, even among his own Labour Party comrades. Writing in his Memoir, O'Brien neatly summed up the difficult position in which he found himself: ‘I was altogether out of tune with my colleagues over Northern Ireland’.

This article examines the 1641 Irish rebellion through a neglected manuscript account from 1643, written by Henry Jones and three of his 1641 deposition colleagues. The ‘Treatise’ offers important insights into the rebellion, but also advances a broader understanding of the significance of the early modern efforts to civilise Ireland and the impact of these schemes, especially plantation, on the kind of conflict that erupted in the 1640s. It is an evaluation that brings together both the long pre-history of the rebellion, and what eventually unfolded, offering new perspectives into a crucial and contested debate within modern historiography. The ‘Treatise’ also presents the opportunity to interrogate the position of the settler community, and their careful construction and presentation of a religiously- and culturally-driven improvement of the country. While it was a period of crisis, the rebellion offered an important opportunity to reflect on the wider project of Irish conversion and civility. It was a moment of creation and self-creation, as the emerging ‘British’ community not only digested the shock of the rebellion, but sought to fashion narratives that underlined their moral claims to Ireland on the grounds of true religion and civility.

This article explores the contraception campaigns of Irishwomen United (I.W.U.) and their offshoot, the Contraception Action Programme (CAP), in the Republic of Ireland from 1975 to 1981. It draws on ten oral history interviews with former members of I.W.U. and CAP conducted by the author, in addition to feminist magazines, newspaper sources and the Roisin Conroy/Attic Press archive. For Irish feminists, the issue of class was paramount to their contraception campaigns while, in common with their counterparts in the United States, they were also concerned about the increasing medicalisation of women's bodies and the potential health risks of the contraceptive pill, commonly prescribed as a ‘cycle regulator’ in Ireland. Fundamentally, I.W.U. and CAP members believed in a women's movement that allowed for the equal distribution of sexual knowledge and access to contraception. In this way, they foregrounded the connection between health and economic rights. Through their demonstrations, meetings and service provision, in unconventional spaces such as shops, markets, community centres and caravans, they challenged not only the law, but also the authority of both religious patriarchy and medical expertise in Ireland. Through an exploration of the activities of I.W.U./CAP, this article will contribute to understandings of campaigns around contraception and, with my commitment to profiling the experiences of ‘rank and file’ women, it will highlight class inequalities and concerns surrounding the medicalisation of women's bodies to a larger extent than has been done before. It also seeks to show the importance of informal women's networks in providing access to contraception and information about contraception pre-legalisation. Moreover, the article seeks to further elucidate the contribution of Irish grassroots organisations which have received limited historical attention.

The history of sex and sexuality is underdeveloped in Irish historical studies, particularly for the period before the late-nineteenth century. While much has been written on rates of illegitimacy in Ireland, and its regional diversity, little research has been conducted on how ordinary women and men viewed sex and sexuality. Moreover, we still know little about the roles that sex played in the rituals of courtship and marriage. Drawing on a sample of Presbyterian church records, this article offers some new insights into these areas. It argues that sexual intercourse and other forms of sexual activity formed part of the normal courtship rituals for many young Presbyterian couples in Ulster. Courting couples participated in non-penetrative sexual practices, such as petting, groping and bundling. Furthermore, while sexual intercourse did not have a place in the formal route to marriage, many couples engaged in it regardless.