Irish Nuns and Education in the Anglophone World: A Transnational History, by Deirdre Raftery

Irish nuns and education in the Anglophone world: a transnational history

This article provides an account of some of the education provisions by Irish women religious, in the Anglophone world, in the nineteenth century. Although many orders sent Sisters around the globe, to both establish and run schools for English-speaking children, the main focus of this article is on two Irish orders, the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Sisters of Mercy. While the work of other female congregations is noted, the focus on these two orders reflects the fact that they spread quickly around the globe, attracting many Irish vocations and eventually making a substantial contribution to education. The Sisters of Mercy were also known for their work in health care; however, the focus of this article is on education. The article commences with a review of the research in the field and the approaches taken by historians. The article also notes some lacunae in research and points to areas that merit more attention. The article then examines the experience of Irish nuns overseas and the contribution of the Mercy and Presentation nuns.

Irish Nuns and Education in the Anglophone World

Founding and Teaching: Education Provision by Irish Nuns in the Nineteenth-Century Anglophone World

Transnational history has become something of a phenomenon in the Anglophone world, and Australian historians have followed their international counterparts in their enthusiasm for the potential of...

This book explores the general development of transnational radicalism between the 1850s and 1940s. This is achieved by means of a new and original study of the connected transnational lives and wider radical worlds of two important socialists, British-born Tom Mann (1856-1941) and Australian-born Robert Samuel Ross (1873-1941). Mann and Ross were very active, as labour organisers, editors and educators, in socialist and labour movements in the Anglophone world and beyond. They met in Australia in 1903, worked individually and together in trans-Tasman radical circles in Australia and New Zealand, and developed strong connections with radicals in the wider world. They kept in close touch after Mann’s departure for Britain, via South Africa, in 1910. They helped to build radical transnational movements and networks that sought to create a socialist alternative to capitalism and capitalist globalisation. These have been largely neglected in the literature. Based upon extensive primary- and secondary-based research, this book seeks to recapture this partly hidden world of transnational radicalism. In so doing it also makes a case in favour of transnational history against the ‘methodological nationalism’ which has dominated the subject of history for so long. It attempts to make a new and useful contribution to the literature on transnationalism, globalisation and social movements. It will appeal not only to historians but social scientists in general and all those interested in radical politics, especially those seeking radical alternatives to today’s neo-liberal globalisation and capitalism.

Settler colonial studies have enjoyed rapid growth as a field of scholarly inquiry since the 1990s. Scholars of settler colonialism distinguish it from other forms of colonialism—for example, extractive, planation, or trade colonialism—by positing that settlers move en masse to foreign lands with the intention of staying or permanently settling. Settlers therefore covet the land, not the labor, of Indigenous people, a structural dynamic that precipitates the “elimination” of Indigenous communities. Settler colonial studies have proven particularly germane to analysis of the Anglophone world during the 19th and 20th centuries, and to the study of global systems and transnational histories. While elements of settler colonial studies can illuminate historical understanding of North American history since 1492, the diversity of historical experiences in what became the United States means that American historians have approached this body of scholarship with caution. As is the case with any theoretical construct, historians are well advised to engage settler colonial studies with an active and critical eye before considering how they might best incorporate it into their teaching and research.

The dossier which we introduce here is, as Laura and Guilherme’s introductions reflect, the product of an attempt to speak about translation across linguistic and national fields of the history of geography. Between us, the three co-editors share an interest in working across the anglophone, germanophone, francophone and lusophone worlds. The dossier, the fruit of Guilherme’s passion for translation and the history of geography, seeks to navigate between these languages, and to juxtapose them...