'Je suis d'aucune Nation': the recruitment and identity of Irish women religious in the international mission field, c. 1840-1940

This article examines the lives of Irish-born women religious around the world in the period 1840–1940. Ireland sent thousands of nuns overseas as teachers and missionaries, to work in schools, orphanages and hospitals in Sub-Saharan Africa, South East Asia, the Americas, Australia and Europe. Looking at contemporaneous views of missionary work, recruitment to religious life and the social conditions for Irish women during and after the years of the Great Famine, the article determines some of the attractions of religious life for Irish women, and the expression of their Irish identity to be found in convents internationally. The article concludes with comments on the bifurcated identity of Irish women religious who, though first and foremost members of particular religious orders, were often identified by others as 'Irish Nuns'.