WOMEN’S HISTORY ASSOCIATION OF IRELAND CONFERENCE
Mary Immaculate College, 29 – 30 May 2026
(TARA BUILDING: ROOMS T117, T313, T314, T315)
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CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
Friday 29 May
9.15 Registration Open
9: 45 - 11.30
Panel 1A (T313)
Family strategies
Chair: DR Judy Bolger
Éabha Gallagher (Trinity College Dublin), ‘From exclusion to empowerment: support networks and advocacy among single mothers, c. 1960s–1990s’.
Amy Lynn Panetta (University of Limerick), ‘Emigrant Women, Letters, and Family Responsibility: Care, Inheritance, and Shared Values in the Italian American Context’.
Panel 1B (T314)
Political Activism & Political Wives
Chair: Dr Diane Urquhart
Bernadette Whelan (University of Limerick), ‘From Booterstown to the “perk in the Park”: Sinéad de Valera, 1959–73
Katie Tate (Stranmillis, Queen’s University, Belfast), “Social gain and female authority: Governors’ wives in Northern Ireland, 1922-1972”)
Remy Biggs (Trinity College Dublin), ‘“The Girls from Urbiano”: feminism and the Italian resistance, 1943-1945’
11.30-12pm Tea break
12-1.30pm
ECR Clinic (T315)
Theme - Prospects, Publications, and Pathways: Early Career Research in Academia
Chairs - Norma Owens & Lorna Fagan
Panellists - Dr. Maeve O'Riordan, Dr. Deirdre Foley, Dr. Anna Lively.
12-1.30 pm
Panel 2 (T314)
Economic and Philanthropic networks
Chair: Dr Melissa Sheils
Rebecca O’Regan (University of Limerick), ‘The value of women’s socio-economic networks in rural Irish communities: A case study of Adare, Co. Limerick, 1850–1860’
Hélène Bradley Davies (Mary Immaculate College, Limerick), ‘One woman’s response to “poverty” in Limerick. The legacy of Alice Craven’
1.30-2.30pm Lunch
2.30-4pm Parallel Panel 3
3A (T313)
Parenthood and care work
Chair: Dr Deirdre Foley
Ciaran McCabe (Mary Immaculate College, Limerick), ‘Creches, day nurseries and working mothers in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Ireland’.
Judy Bolger (Carlow College), ‘Perfectly satisfied’ – gaining marital support while mothering in early nineteenth-century Ireland’.
Elaine P. Farrell (Maynooth University), ‘Mothers of Saints: Representations of Mothers in Irish Saint’s Lives’.
3B (T314)
Women’s Rights
Chair: Dr Jennifer Redmond
Suzanne Jobling (Independent), ‘‘‘Why must we put up with this rubbish?”: Irish and British Government resistance to Employment Equality Rights in the EEC’.
Máire Hussey (Trinity College Dublin), ‘Gaining a body, gaining rights? The 1970s contraception debates and the “permissive” girl in Ireland, 1970–1979’.
Anna Lively (University of Strathclyde), ‘“Long-suffering Ireland! How much she has in common with Russia”: Connections and divergences between the Irish and Russian Women’s Rights Movements, 1905–1923’.
3C (T315)
Education
Chair: Dr Clodagh Tait
Anne Marie Brosnan (Mary Immaculate College, Limerick), ‘Mary Kildare: An Irish Missionary Teaching Former Slaves in the American South, 1867-1874’.
Karen Hanrahan (University College London), ‘“Life is for the liver”: Transitions in convent life following the Second Vatican Council’.
Break: 4-4.15pm
4.15-5.15pm (T117)
Opening Remarks
Dr Martin Walsh & Prof. Helene Bradley Davis (Acting Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs, MIC)
Keynote Speaker: Prof. Sarah Richardson (University of Glasgow)
(Chair Dr Sonja Tiernan)
‘Law-breaking justified': women and challenges to the state in early nineteenth century Britain’
Saturday 30 May
Parallel Panel 1: 9.30-11am
1A (T313)
Music and culture
Chair: Dr Martin Walsh
Teresa O’Donnell (Mary Immaculate College, Limerick), ‘Transforming tradition: Gráinne Yeats as harper and cultural mediator’
Ann Alcorn (University College Cork), ‘Advancing the warp: Evelyn Gleeson weaving cultural identity and economic recovery during Ireland’s Revival era’.
1B (T314)
Spinsters & Singlehood
Chair: Dr Melissa Shiels
Maeve O’Riordan (University College Cork), ‘Feeble folk and old maids: exploring the gains of singlehood in the country house’.
Mary Matthews (University of Limerick), ‘From home-worker to career-woman: dependence to independence? A look at the lives of spinsters in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Ireland’.
1C (T315)
Maternity & Healthcare
Chair: Dr Suzanne Jobling
Deirdre Foley & Ella Armstrong (Trinity College Dublin), ‘TÚS: Pregnancy and Giving Birth in Ireland, 1950-2020’.
Ciara Henderson (Trinity College Dublin), ‘Rewriting Loss: Parents as Agents of Change in Perinatal Bereavement Care, 1950-2000’.
Julien Santos de Mello, (University of Limerick), ‘‘Healing Roots: Women and Traditional Medicine in Irish Folklore’
Break: 11-11.30am
Parallel Panel 2: 11.30-1pm
2A (T313)
Inheritance
Chair: Dr Clodagh Tait
Marnie Camping-Harris (Trinity College Dublin), ‘Transnational Heiress: Isabel de Clare and the Intersection of Female Lineage and Colonial Power’.
Giorgia Noto (Dublin City University), ‘Gaining Power in Sixteenth-century Italy: The Case of Beatriz of Portugal, Duchess of Savoy’.
2B (T314)
Reform, Rehabilitation and Punishment
Chair: Dr Martin Walsh
Róisín Doherty McBride (Mary Immaculate College, Limerick), ‘“Do something for the poor creature” Charity assistance for women leaving Limerick Prison in the 1890s’.
Helen Doyle (Maynooth University), ‘The woman neither is nor was, at any time, the least insane.’ What was gained by committing women to Irish district asylums as 'dangerous' lunatics during the nineteenth century.
Emma Barrett (University of Limerick), ‘The Witch of Edmonton: A case study on women, witchcraft and the socio- economic conditions of early seventeenth-century England.’
2C (T315)
Gender, Colonialism and Conflict
Chair: Dr Sonja Tieran
Lynsey Black and Danielle Jefferis (Maynooth University), ‘Women on the edge: gendered experiences of the border’.
Aimee Warburton (Liverpool Hope University), ‘Manipulating Expectations and Perceptions- How Republican Women gained Agency and Opportunities through Invisibility, Disguise and Subterfuge’.
Lisa Crutchfield (University of Lynchburg), ‘Greater Gains for Women Under Frontier Conditions? A Case Study of Irish Immigrants to Colonial Georgia’.
Lunch: 1-2pm
Parallel Panel 3: 2-3.20pm
3A (T313)
Marriage & Widowhood
Chair: Norma Owens
Kristina Decker (University College Cork), “At my own command”: The first widowhood of Mary Granville Pendarves Delany (1700-1788)'
Joanna Sutton (Maynooth University), ‘“Wilfully Disobedient’: The two marriages of Elizabeth Preston, 1585-1614’.
Adam Kane (University College Dublin), ‘“A conspiracy against widows and orphans”: The Challenges, Motives, and Opportunities of Irish Women in the Financial Sphere, 1820-1900’.
3B (T314)
Cultural Memory & print
Chair: TBC
Cathryn McWilliams (University of South-Eastern Norway), ‘Gaining a Reputation: Belfast’s Mary Ann McCracken in Cultural Memory’.
Magali Segovia (University College Cork), ‘Unravelling Irishness: gendered identities in diasporic Irish cultural printed press in early 20th-century Argentina’.
Naomi Rice (University of Limerick), ‘Paint me like one of your republican girls. Exploring visual depictions women’s historical gains through the republican iconography campaign of the Troubles in the North of Ireland, 1981-2025’.
3C (T315)
Materiality & Bequests
Chair: TBC
Melissa Shiels (University College Cork), ‘"Proofe of our good meaninge towardes you": the Countess of Desmond's gift-giving strategies'.
Hannah Evans (University of Liverpool), ‘Patronage, piety and politics: women’s gift-giving in medieval Ireland’.
Tadhg Farrell (Trinity College Dublin), ‘The economic lives of noblewomen in late medieval Thomond’.
Closing Remarks: 3.20 -3.30pm
Prof. Sonja Tiernan (WHAI President)