An agenda for women’s history in Ireland, 1500–1900: Part II: 1800–1900

Abstract

What is exciting about looking at women’s history in nineteenth-century Ireland is the great wealth of material which is available for study and research. Yet very little relevant work has been published. The reasons for this neglect are manifold, and include a basic indifference on the part of most academics to the role played by women in Irish history, which has resulted in the general exclusion of women from historical discourse. The lack of courses recognising the history of women has further relegated their study to the periphery. In Ireland historians, and particularly historians of women, have yet to establish a narrative and an explanatory and interpretative framework which includes Irish women. Through the work of historians in other countries, we have various conceptual frameworks within which to operate and many hypotheses to test with regard to the situation of women in Ireland. The areas for research are extensive. Here I intend to look generally at a number of aspects of women’s lives which have been investigated to some degree and to suggest sources which can be used to extend these investigations. I also wish to look at other issues which have received no attention but which would add considerably to our understanding, not only of women, but of the complex realities which made up nineteenth-century Irish society.