Nano Nagle. The Life and the Legacy , by Deirdre Raftery, Catriona Delaney, Catherine Nowlan-Roebuck (review)

Abstract

working class’ – not least Seán O’Casey’s redoubtable tenement dwelling unionist, Bessie Burgess. The volume is not without its lighter side in the contributions of Caleb Richardson on ‘the nature of humour and the Southern Irish Protestant’ in the work of Patrick Campbell (‘Quidnunc’ of The Irish Times) and Felix Larkin’s fine (illustrated) piece on the depiction of Southern Irish Protestants in Irish Cartoons (especially C E Kelly’s classic ‘Ceilidhe in the Kildare Street Club’ from Dublin Opinion). In truth, Campbell’s cool, detached style very much mirrors that of the editors in their relaxed approach to the essays in their care, as they chart the complex journey of southern Protestants to their ‘place in the new dispensation [in which they] are now more or less “uncomplicatedly Irish.”’ As Roy Foster notes in his preface, the various contributions in Protestant and Irish reflect ‘a certain vibrancy and combativeness … within the ostensibly dusty and downbeat image of Southern Irish Protestantism’. As the editors conclude, the sixteen essays speak for themselves; they also speak for their authors and for the editors, as well as for the minority under review – and they do so with much eloquence. Declan O’Keeffe is Assistant Archivist and College Historian, Clongowes Wood College. Nano Nagle. The Life and the Legacy, Deirdre Raftery, Catriona Delaney, Catherine Nowlan-Roebuck (Newbridge: Irish Academic Press, 2019), xix+294 pages. In the course of the Second Vatican Council, religious congregations were encouraged to return to the original inspiration of their founders, to study how this inspiration was articulated in the course of their histories. This was a vast, long-term project of accessing and cataloguing archives, in particular for those congregations whose archives were situated in different areas, either within individual countries or dispersed in various corners of the world. It required on-going planning in order to find a balance between centralising archival material internationally and retaining local archival material in parts of the world. This continues to be a work in progress. In their book, Nano Nagle. The Life and the Legacy, the authors have made Autumn 2019: Book Reviews Studies • volume 108 • number 431 353 Studies_layout_AUTUMN-2019.indd 121 21/08/2019 09:14 a truly significant contribution to the history of the Presentations Sisters. They based their research on the archives of the congregation in Ireland and in those parts of the world where the congregation is located. A daunting task in terms of time and travel, research and writing. The book begins with the life of the founder of the Presentation Sisters, Nano Nagle, 1718–1784. She was born into a prosperous Catholic gentry family, a family which had long roots in Ireland, indeed from Norman times. Down the centuries generations of the Nagles had been shaped by successive events, the Tudor and Stuart Plantations, the Reformation and then the Counter-Reformation. More closely to Nano’s lifetime, the Nagle family was directly impacted by the defeat of James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and his subsequent exile in France, in St Germain-en-Laye. Nano’s granduncle , Richard Nagle, was Secretary of War to James II and after the defeat joined the Court of James II in France. There he married and had a large family, which in time provided welcome space for visits from Irish members of the family. This included Nano, when she was sent to France to further her education. There she was brought into contact with several religious communities of women, among them the Ursulines. In time she would invite this community to Cork. Life for the Nagle family in Ireland was burdened by the restrictions of the Penal Laws. Nano was acutely aware of the dire poverty in the Catholic community and wished to address this. From 1750, using her personal family wealth, she determined to provide schools for the poor girls and boys in Cork city. By 1769 she had set up five schools for girls and two schools for boys. This initial commitment to work with poor children in Cork led in time to her founding a new community, the Presentation Sisters. And yet, as Nano Nagle. The Life and the...