February NUI Galway to Host Women’s History Association of Ireland Symposium

NUI Galway’s Moore Institute will host a symposium presented by the Women’s History Association of Ireland on Friday 16 February. One of Ireland’s leading historians, Professor Mary O’Dowd from Queen’s University Belfast, will address the association on the progress and pathways for future research on Irish women’s history from 1500-1800.

Professor O’Dowd’s address will provide the culmination of a day of discussion by researchers from NUI Galway, TCD, UL and QUB. Speakers will explore the experience of aristocratic Irish women in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Lady Ranelagh and Lady Tyrconnell), letter writing and correspondence networks in and outside Ireland, and the legal standing of women in that period.

Conference organiser, Dr Bronagh McShane, post-doctoral fellow in the Humanities from the Moore Institute at NUI Galway, said: “Just over 25 years on from the publication of Professor O’Dowd’s ‘Agenda for Women’s History in Ireland’, written with Margaret MacCurtain and Maria Luddy, this one-day seminar will bring together leading and emerging scholars currently engaged in research on the history of early modern Irish women in order to assess progress made and to identify new paths yet to be forged.”

Director of the Moore Institute Professor Daniel Carey at NUI Galway, said: “Women’s history is one of the most vibrant and significant areas of research into Irish history in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. New breakthroughs in understanding how women communicated, how they represented themselves socially and publically, and how they managed their legal affairs are emerging all the time. This event will provide a valuable update and way forward for research.”

The symposium will take place in Seminar Room G010, Hardiman Research Building at NUI Galway from 9am to 5pm on Friday, 16 February.

The event is free and open to the public and advance registration is required at: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/new-directions-in-early-modern-irish-womens-history-tickets-41707319716

For further event information contact Dr Bronagh McShane at bronagh.mcshane@nuigalway.ie or 091 493903.

For more details about the Moore Institute, visit: www.mooreinstitute.ie/

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