Gender, Subjectivity and Lived Experience in Higher Education in Ireland, 1850-1910

The reform of higher education for women in Ireland during the nineteenth century mirrors international patterns, being most closely informed by the movement in Britain. Education became embedded in a wider movement for women’s economic, political, and social autonomy. This broadening and deepening of the reform agenda was paralleled in most Western democracies and is described by Evans as "the history of a progressively widening set of objectives." The most public expression of the reform movement in Ireland can be traced to Dublin and Belfast, with the greatest support base emerging from middle-class women who were already active in philanthropic work. As the debate gained momentum, the push for education, as for suffrage, would emanate and proliferate from these large urban centers. Although Protestant men and women initially led the reform agenda, gradually Catholics, more restricted in their capacity to publicly agitate for reform, joined their Protestant counterparts in questioning the dominant hegemony that challenged women’s advancement.