Dr Bronagh Ann McShane FRHistS, Irish Women in Religious Orders, 1530-1700: Suppression, Migration and Reintegration

In 1992, the seminal article, An Agenda for Women’s History in Ireland, 1500-1900, featured in Irish Historical Studies. Here, Luddy, Mac Curtain and O’Dowd highlighted emergent work on Irish female religious orders but stressed, “there are many areas of convent life which still require further investigation.” McShane’s book is a comprehensive and thorough response to this lacuna in the histography. Indeed, in the thirty years that have passed since the agenda for women’s history was set, this is the book that not only historians of female religious but all those interested in Irish women and gender history have been waiting for.