Irish History Live

Quiet Revolutionaries

Author: Margaret Ó hÓgartaigh

Publisher: The History Press Ireland

Published: 2011, Dublin

Pages: 256

Price: £13.64/€14.99 RRP  (Paperback)

Reviewer: Sara Irvine

The proliferation of women’s history in the last thirty years has done much to examine the experience of women in the home and their impact on family life. This aspect of Irish women’s history has been well documented but until recently little had been written on professional Irish women. Margaret Ó hÓgartaigh brings together her previously published essays on women in education, medicine and sport in an attempt to fill this gap. Ó hÓgartaigh is well known in this area of research as she has already made a considerable contribution to the field with her biography of Dr Kathleen Lynn.[1] A significant proportion of Quiet Revolutionaries is devoted to women in education. This area has become increasingly popular in recent years with much research being done to discover how education shaped the lives of women and their careers after they left academia. In particular historians such as Judith Harford and Claire Rush have produced works on women in Irish universities.[2] Out of the three areas which Ó hÓgartaigh explores, the least has been written on women in sport. Aside from a few local histories of clubs and societies the topic has been neglected.

When the fields of education, medicine and sport are viewed together they present a myriad of new questions regarding the professionalization of women in Ireland. This provokes further questions about the career opportunities open to women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Quiet Revolutionaries is one of the first books to examine women as they broke into the male-dominated fields of medicine and sport. It also adds to the existing literature on female education. Margaret Ó hÓgartaigh attempts to bring together aspects of each field to provide an overview of the experiences of women as they entered professional careers. Whilst individual studies have been carried out on each topic, no other author has attempted to discuss these careers in a single volume.

The extensive use of primary sources and little-known archives is without a doubt the greatest strength of this book. In the first chapter Ó hÓgartaigh is careful to emphasise the fact that ‘records must come first’ (p. 11). This is a principle which she adheres to throughout the book and can be seen in her impressive bibliography. Not only does she make use of the larger archives such as the National Library of Ireland but also smaller archives such as the Irish National Teachers Organisation and the An Board Altranis (the nursing board) records. Hospital archives are also made use of, particularly the Peamount Hospital (Dublin) archives. In addition to an extensive bibliography Ó hÓgartaigh includes a chapter on archival sources for the history of professional women in Ireland. This is an invaluable source of information for a researcher wishing to study this topic. The vast majority of the conclusions which the author reaches throughout the book are thoroughly grounded in archival evidence.

On first appearances this book seems to be a monograph but on closer inspection it becomes clear that it is in fact a collection of articles which the author has written between 1996 and 2009. This is somewhat misleading as a cursory glance does not give any indication that this is a collection of essays. The book is split into three sections; the first two are on education and medicine which take up the majority of the book. The third section is on women in sport; this consists of only eleven pages and seems disproportionate to the amount of space given to the other topics. As a result the sport section does not fit with the rest of the book and seems like an afterthought. The final chapter is also out of place, as it explores the view of a Kells Councillor on the topic of women and paid work. Whilst it is an interesting methodology to use one man’s views to analyse the position of professional women, it does not make a good conclusion. It would have been much better if the author had written a conclusion specifically for this book.

 The central theme of Quiet Revolutionaries addresses the issue of professional women in Ireland and how their professionalization came about. Ó hÓgartaigh does this by using three specific examples to illustrate problems faced by professional women. The education section looks at key developments such as the Intermediate Education Act (1878) and the establishment of the Royal University of Ireland in 1879. These were very important in establishing a focus on education and standardised testing. Section one also explores the gendered nature of education and the teaching profession. There is also an attempt to recognise the differences between the educational tradition in Ulster and elsewhere in Ireland, even before 1921. Part two discusses women in medicine and highlights the fact that they faced many similar issues to women in education. Women’s suitability for medicine and why they became predominant in certain fields such as paediatrics are important themes. One of the high points of this section is the discussion of the impact of marriage on career prospects. The careers of the McGrath sisters who were trained pharmacists and established a pharmacy in Carrick-on-Suir is used as an illustrative case study (p. 163). Part three is less detailed and offers a short discussion of Ireland’s first camogie club. This is accompanied by a brief yet interesting discussion of women in mixed athletics with a particularly good analysis of the church response to female participation (p. 175).

Whilst the content of this book is factually sound and well written it does have one major weakness. Each chapter appears to stand separately and there is little to link them together except the overall theme of professional women. This makes it difficult to pick out specific research questions and themes. These are problems which are to be expected from an edited volume but in this case the author wrote all the essays so surely she could have made them seem less disjointed. If she had taken her research and used it to write a monograph then this could be one of the foremost books on the topic of professional women. As it stands this is a good overview but lacks analysis in places and its disjointed nature makes it frustrating to read.

The poor structure is not the only problem which arises when reading this book. In many of the chapters the analysis of class is rather weak. In her discussion of girls who had a second level education Ó hÓgartaigh restricts her analysis to just two lines, ‘the majority of women who received a second-level education came from at least modestly comfortable backgrounds’ (p. 30). Surely there is more to be said on this topic as class is likely to have had an impact on the career prospects of a young woman. One of the less impressive chapters is on women and university education. Whilst this particular chapter was written in 2001 the book was not published until 2011. By this time Judith Harford had published her book on the opening of university education to women in Ireland as well as an edited collection of essays on women in Irish universities 1850-2010.[3] It may have been helpful if this essay had been rewritten to incorporate some of the newer literature on the topic.

On a stylistic note there is a lot of repetition in this book. It is not simply repetition of ideas or points but almost exactly the same wording is used. There are at least thirteen instances where the author uses the same or a very similar paragraph. Whilst the format of the book makes this a likely occurrence, it would have been beneficial if the repetition of paragraphs had been edited out as it is frustrating for the reader.

Whilst this book has its flaws it also has many good points. The author frequently makes comparisons with other countries such as Australia and America. This helps to put the experience of Irish women in an international context. For example, there is a good comparison with the female Oxbridge students who came to TCD to graduate in the 1930s (p.43). Hierarchy, social connections and union involvement are also discussed in a clear and interesting manner. Chapter ten is the most successful in the book, as it situates Dr Dorothy Stopford-Price’s experience and contribution to the eradication of childhood TB in the wider context of Irish history.

There is little doubt that Quiet Revolutionaries is a valuable source of information for an academic reader. However, the intended audience is more likely to be individuals with a general interest in Irish women’s history. The intention of the author is not to provide a comprehensive account of female teachers, doctors and sportswomen but to allow an interesting insight into their lives. With this in mind the book appears to be aimed at a wider audience and not confined to a strictly academic readership. This is also reflected in the publisher and the relatively low RRP.

Quiet Revolutionaries is a good starting point for a researcher who is interested in professional women. The sources which it uses are excellent and rarely utilised. The literary style of each chapter is generally good and the points made are clear and concise. The only major downfall is the format of the book; it is laid out as a collection of individual essays when the wealth of material would be more suited to a monograph. If this major flaw could be rectified then this has the potential to be an outstanding book.

 

[1] M. Ó hÓgartaigh, Kathleen Lynn: Irishwoman, patriot, doctor (Dublin, 2006).

[2] J. Harford, The opening of university education to women in Ireland (Dublin, 2008); J. Harford and C. Rush (eds), Have women made a difference?: women in Irish universities, 1850-2010 (Bern, 2010).

[3] Harford, The opening of university education; Harford and Rush (eds), Have women made a difference?

 

Bibliography

Books:

Harford, J., The opening of university education to women in Ireland (Dublin, 2008).

Harford, J. and C. Rush (eds), Have women made a difference?: women in Irish universities, 1850-2010 (Bern, 2010).

Ó hÓgartaigh, M., Kathleen Lynn: Irishwoman, patriot, doctor (Dublin, 2006).

Ó hÓgartaigh, M., Quiet revolutionaries: Irish women in education, medicine and sport, 1861-1964 (Dublin, 2011).

Websites:

Dictionary of Irish Biography – Dr Kathleen Lynn and Dr Dorothy Stopford-Price http://dib.cambridge.org/ (accessed 06 January 2012)

 

Sara Irvine is an Irish History M.A. student at Queen’s University Belfast. She graduated from QUB with a B.A. in Modern History in 2012. Sara’s B.A. dissertation was entitled ‘The role of women in Northern Ireland during the Second World War’. Her current M.A. research focuses on female teachers in Northern Ireland, 1921-66.

 

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