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women in higher education in Ireland under the umbrella of Irish women’s history. 25
Within this field, the Irish higher education system has been represented as being
‘discriminatory’ and ‘only one part of the overall patriarchal organisation of Irish
society’. 26 There has also been a great deal of work done on the topic of women
and philanthropy which intersects with my topic of study. 27 In particular, this study
contributes to the history of women in the professions. 28 It differs from previous
studies, however, because it uses a combination of both statistical and
contemporary material in order to give a more thorough picture of the educational
and professional experiences of women medical graduates.
The thesis draws upon several historical fields: it is a history of women medical
graduates in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but more broadly, it
relates to the history of medicine in Ireland, the history of women in higher
education in Ireland, the history of women in medicine and Irish social history. I aim
to provide an account of the history of Irish women in medicine that uses a
combination of methodological approaches. Hospital and medical school minute
books and records give us an insight into issues surrounding the admission of
women to Irish medical schools and hospitals, but these will be supplemented by
contemporary writings, medical journal articles and newspaper reports.
Matriculation and graduation statistics provide a broad picture of the women who
25 See: Judith Harford, The opening of university education to women in Ireland, (Dublin:
Irish Academic Press, 2008) and ‘The movement for the higher education of women in
Ireland: gender equality or denominational rivalry?’, History of Education, 34:5, (September,
2005), pp.497-516; Gillian McClelland, Pioneering women: Riddel Hall and Queen’s
University Belfast, (Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 2005); Susan M. Parkes, A danger
to the men: a history of women in Trinity College Dublin, 1904-2004, (Dublin: Lilliput Press,
2004); Eileen Breathnach, ‘Women and higher education in Ireland (1879-1914)’, The Crane
Bag, 4:1, (1980), pp.47-54. The history of the national and secondary school education of
Irish girls has also been well-documented in Deirdre Raftery, Female education in Ireland
1700-1900: Minerva or Madonna, (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2007), Mary Cullen (ed.),
Girls don’t do honours; : Irish women in education in the 19 th and 20 th centuries, (Dublin:
Women’s education bureau, 1987), Alison Jordan, Margaret Byers: a pioneer of women’s
education and founder of Victoria College, Belfast, (Belfast: Institute of Irish studies,
Queen’s University Belfast, 1987).
26 Mary Cullen, ‘Introduction’, in: Mary Cullen (ed.), Girls don’t do honours, p.2.
27 See Oonagh Walsh, Anglican women in Dublin: philanthropy, politics and education in the
early twentieth century, (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2005). See also: Maria
Luddy, Women and philanthropy in nineteenth-century Ireland, (Cambridge University
Press, 1995). For Irish women in the missionary field, see: Myrtle Hill, ‘Gender, culture and
the ‘spiritual empire’: the Irish Protestant female missionary experience’, Women’s history
review, 16:2 (April 2007), pp.203-226.
28 See Whelan (ed.), Women and paid work in Ireland.
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