The Number 1 Bestseller 'A captivating account of lives previously ignored' Sunday Independent Ireland in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was not a good place to be a woman. Among the wave of emigrants from Ireland to North America were many, many young women who travelled on their own, hoping for a better life. Some lived lives of quiet industry and piety. Others quickly found themselves in trouble - bad trouble, and on an astonishing scale. Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick, creators of the celebrated 'Bad Bridget' podcast, have unearthed a world in which Irish women actually outnumbered Irish men in prison, in which you could get locked up for 'stubbornness', and in which a serial killer called Lizzie Halliday was described by the New York Times as 'the worst woman on earth'. They reveal the social forces that bred this mayhem and dysfunction, through stories that are brilliantly strange, sometimes funny, and often moving. From sex workers and thieves to kidnappers and killers, these Bridgets are young women who have gone from the frying pan of their impoverished homeland to the fire of vast North American cities. Bad Bridget is a masterpiece of social history and true crime, showing us a fascinating and previously unexplored world. ______ 'An important, impeccably researched though eminently readable book that charts new territory . . . this could yet be the book of 2023' Irish Examiner 'I just loved it!' Ryan Tubridy 'Fascinating' Irish Times

This book is the first collection of essays to focus exclusively on Irish women's experiences in the First World War period, 1914-18, across the island of Ireland, contextualising the wartime realities of women's lives in a changing political landscape. The essays consider experiences ranging from the everyday realities of poverty and deprivation, to the contributions made to the war effort by women through philanthropy and by working directly with refugees. Gendered norms and assumptions about women's behaviour are critically analysed, from the rhetoric surrounding 'separation women' and their use of alcohol, to the navigation of public spaces and the attempts to deter women from perceived immoral behaviour. Political life is also examined by leading scholars in the field, including accounts from women on both sides of the 'Irish question' and the impact the war had on their activism and ambitions. Finally, new light is shed on the experiences of women working in munitions factories around Ireland and the complexity of this work in the Irish context is explored. Throughout, it is asserted that while there were many commonalities in women's experiences throughout the British and Irish Isles at this time, the particular political context of Ireland added a different, and in many respects an unexamined, dimension. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women's History Review.

Winner of the NUI Publication Prize in Irish History 2015. This book examines the phenomenon of infanticide in Ireland from 1850 to 1900, examining a sample of 4,645 individual cases of infant murder, attempted infanticide and concealment of birth. Evidence for this study has been gleaned from a variety of sources, including court documents, coroners' records, prison files, parliamentary papers, and newspapers. Through these sources, many of which are rarely used by scholars, attitudes towards the crime, the women accused of the offence, and the victim, are revealed. Although infant murder was a capital offence during this period, none of the women found guilty of the crime were executed, suggesting a degree of sympathy and understanding towards the accused. Infanticide cases also allude to complex dynamics and tensions between employers and servants, parents and pregnant daughters, judges and defendants, and prison authorities and inmates. This book highlights much about the lived realities of nineteenth-century Ireland. -- .

This book is the first collection of essays to focus exclusively on Irish women's experiences in the First World War period, 1914-18, across the island of Ireland, contextualising the wartime realities of women's lives in a changing political landscape. The essays consider experiences ranging from the everyday realities of poverty and deprivation, to the contributions made to the war effort by women through philanthropy and by working directly with refugees. Gendered norms and assumptions about women's behaviour are critically analysed, from the rhetoric surrounding 'separation women' and their use of alcohol, to the navigation of public spaces and the attempts to deter women from perceived immoral behaviour. Political life is also examined by leading scholars in the field, including accounts from women on both sides of the 'Irish question' and the impact the war had on their activism and ambitions. Finally, new light is shed on the experiences of women working in munitions factories around Ireland and the complexity of this work in the Irish context is explored. Throughout, it is asserted that while there were many commonalities in women's experiences throughout the British and Irish Isles at this time, the particular political context of Ireland added a different, and in many respects an unexamined, dimension. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women's History Review.

This book examines the phenomenon of infanticide in Ireland from 1850 to 1900, examining a sample of 4,645 individual cases of infant murder, attempted infanticide and concealment of birth. Evidence for this study has been gleaned from a variety of sources, including court documents, coroners' records, prison files, parliamentary papers, and newspapers. Through these sources, many of which are rarely used by scholars, attitudes towards the crime, the women accused of the offence, and the victim, are revealed. Although infant murder was a capital offence during this period, none of the women found guilty of the crime were executed, suggesting a degree of sympathy and understanding towards the accused. Infanticide cases also allude to complex dynamics and tensions between employers and servants, parents and pregnant daughters, judges and defendants, and prison authorities and inmates. This book highlights much about the lived realities of nineteenth-century Ireland. -- .

Focusing on women's relationships, decisions and agency, this is the first study of women's experiences in a nineteenth-century Irish prison for serious offenders. Showcasing the various crimes for which women were incarcerated in the post-Famine period, from repeated theft to murder, Elaine Farrell examines inmate files in close detail in order to understand women's lives before, during and after imprisonment. By privileging case studies and individual narratives, this innovative study reveals imprisoned women's relationships with each other, with the staff employed to manage and control them, and with their relatives, spouses, children and friends who remained on the outside. In doing so, Farrell illuminates the hardships many women experienced, their poverty and survival strategies, as well as their responsibilities, obligations, and decisions. Incorporating women's own voices, gleaned from letters and prison files, this intimate insight into individual women's lives in an Irish prison sheds new light on collective female experiences across urban and rural post-Famine Ireland.