Irish women and nationalism: soldiers, new women and wicked hags Louise Ryan and Margaret Ward (eds) (Irish Academic Press, €25 paperback) ISBN 0716527677This book explores Irish women’s engagement with nationalism from a variety of perspectives, including history, sociology, cultural and language studies, law, anthropology and community-based research. The editors, Louise Ryan and Margaret Ward, who … Read more
Ireland: a social and cultural history, 1922–2002 Terence Brown (Harper Perennial, €15) ISBN 0007125761For this third edition of his enormously influential survey of the social and cultural history of independent Ireland, Terence Brown has brought us up to the year 2002. This is an interesting development, for it involves the chronicling of the culture wars … Read more
Ireland and Scotland: culture and society 1700–2000 Liam McIlvanney and Ray Ryan (eds) (Four Courts Press, €55) ISBN 1851828753 When Dominic Behan penned his little ditty ‘The sea, oh the sea, grá geal mo chroi, Long may it roll between England and me. God help the poor Scotsman, he’ll never be free. Thank God we’re … Read more
DUIGNAN, Mary Ann (‘Chicago May’) (1871–1929), criminal and prostitute, described by contemporary tabloid journalists as ‘the most dangerous woman in the world’, was born on 26 December 1871 in Edenmore townland, Dromard parish, Ballinamuck, Co. Longford, the eldest among two daughters and three sons of Francis Duignan and Anne Duignan (née Gray); the pet name … Read more
At a time when there is a greater acknowledgement of the role played by Irishmen in the British army, there is a group of Irishwomen with a unique claim to recognition for their humanitarian work among soldiers. Elise Sandes was the founder of a welfare movement that survives today. She was an evangelical Christian and … Read more