A ‘manly study’? Irish women historians, 1868–1949

A ‘manly study’? Irish women historians, 1868–1949 Nadia Clare Smith (Palgrave/Macmillan, £45) ISBN 9780230009042 In this timely monograph, Nadia Clare Smith has made a significant contribution to Irish women’s history and Irish historiography. Her careful analysis of the careers of twenty women historians not only challenges W. E. Gladstone’s definition of history as a ‘manly … Read more

Cycling spokes and political strokes

Most Irish Olympians up to 1924 were either representatives of adopted homelands, like the USA or the Commonwealth dominions (in 1912 Kennedy McArthur from County Antrim became the only Irish-born winner of the men’s marathon, representing South Africa), or home-based competitors classed in official records as part of the Great Britain team, or sometimes ‘Great … Read more

Irish women’s athletics and the Olympic Games

The first step towards organising international athletics for women was taken in May 1921, when some 300 athletes from Italy, Norway, Switzerland, England and France competed at the Olympiades Feminines held in the glamorous surroundings of Monte Carlo. Mary Lines, a 27-year-old Lyon’s Corner House waitress, proved the star of the games and, with rapturous … Read more

Patrick Pearse:proto-fascist eccentric or mainstream European thinker?

Whatever one’s point of view, Patrick Pearse has always engendered strong emotions. Shortly after the Easter Rising he became widely revered, some even suggesting that he should be made a saint. In the decades surrounding the outbreak of the troubles in Northern Ireland, however, he was frequently described as a ‘fascist’. In 1978 Xavier Carty made a … Read more