We look forward to welcoming you to our first in-person conference since 2019! The conference has a diverse programme of speakers from many disciplines, and our keynote speakers for 2023 are Professor Lindsey Earner-Byrne (UCC), and Professor Máiréad Enright (University of Birmingham).

Please register here via Eventbrite. There is no admission fee for the conference but we ask that all attendees be paid up members of the WHAI. If it is more than a year since you last paid your fee, you can renew it via our membership page.

FRIDAY 26TH MAY

9.00 – 9.30am: Registration (Boole 1)

9.30am: Opening remarks: Dr Deirdre Foley, UCC (Boole 1)

10 – 11.30am: Parallel Panel One 

Panel 1A (Boole 1):

Ukrainian Women in Politics and Activism: historical and artistic perspectives

Chair: Dr Olesia Zhytkova, DCU

Dr Mariia Huk, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, member of NGO Litopys Nezlamnosti

Women of Ukraine during the First World War and today: historical parallels

Dr Yuliia Topolnytska, European University, Kyiv

Social roles of Ukrainian women during the period of the aggravation of the crisis of

the Soviet system (1964-1985): legislation, propaganda, realities

Dr Maria Petrushkevych, National University of Ostroh Academy

The image of Ukraine – woman through the eyes of modern artists in the

context of the Russian-Ukrainian war

Panel 1B (Boole 2):

Revolutionary Voices

Chair: Susannah Deedigan, QUB

Katherine Ingram, QUB

‘Throwing stones at each other’: suffrage militancy in Ireland and its impact on unity in

the female enfranchisement movement

Niall Murray, UCC

Fighting for whose cause? Experiences of a ‘lady doctor’ under Irish revolutionary local

Government

Helen Litton, TCD

Kathleen Clarke: A Woman in Irish Politics, 1916-42

11.30am – 12pm: Tea/Coffee Break

12 – 1.30pm: Parallel Panel Two

Panel 2A (Boole 1):

Ukrainian Women in Politics and Activism: contemporary perspectives

Chair: Dr Mary McAuliffe, UCD

Dr Olesia Zhytkova, DCU

The corruption’s impact on women’s participation in politics and activism in Ukraine in the 21st century

Kateryna Prokopenko – wife of Denys “Redis” Prokopenko, Commander of “Azov” Regiment; the Head of “Association of the Azovstal defenders’ families”

The activity of the “Association of the Azovstal defenders’ families” in Ukraine (2022 – 2023)

Maria Ionova, Ukrainian Member of Parliament

Women in politics and activism in Ukraine in 2022 – 2023

Panel 2B (Boole 2):

Queer Irish Activism

Chair: Susannah Deedigan, QUB

Orla Egan, Cork LGBT Archive 

Diary of An Activist: a social activism memoir

Niamh Scully, University of Oxford

Lesbians Are Everywhere: The Formation of Community Space by Queer Women in Ireland from the 1970s-1990s

1.30 – 2.30pm: Lunch 

2.30 – 4pm: Parallel Panel Three

Panel 3A (Boole 2):

Reproductive Rights in the Republic

Chair: Dr Deirdre Foley

Dr Katherine Side, Memorial University of Newfoundland

Leaving Reproductive Justice Behind for International Protection Seekers

Panel 3B (Boole 1):

Women and Imprisonment

Chair: Professor Lindsey Earner-Byrne, University College Cork

Susan Byrne, TCD

The ordinary female prisoner in the Irish Free State (1922-37)

Susannah Deedigan, QUB

“She will be the last to go out, & by that time she will have killed all these girls”: the Armagh women’s hunger strikes, 1943-4

Miren Mohrenweiser, QUB

Maternal Activism and the State in Northern Ireland, 1976-1981

Panel 3C (Boole 6):

Irish Women’s Writing and Biography

Chair: Dr Maeve O’Riordan, UCC

Michael Loughman, DCU

‘The Simple Life idealised by the Left Wing Politicals’: The writings of Máirín Cregan and the agrarian vision of the Independent Irish state

Orlaith Hickey, DCU

“A body of loss”: Marginalised women in the Irish written record and the role of the

Ainm biographical database in the recovery of women’s stories

4.00 – 4.15pm: Break

4.15 – 5.15pm: Keynote Address (Boole 1):

Dr Máiréad Enright, University of Birmingham

6.30pm: Conference Dinner

SATURDAY 27TH MAY

9.30 – 10.00am: Registration (Boole 1)

10 – 11.30am: Parallel Panel One

Panel 1A (Boole 2):

Women and State Welfare

Chair: Dr Martin Walsh, UL

Olivia Frehill, TCD

Women workers, the state and the impact of the 1911 National Insurance Act

Dr Fionnuala Walsh, UCD

Welfare, widowhood and the state in post-revolutionary Ireland

Suzanne Jobling, QUB

‘A Matter of Public Interest’: Fighting for Pension Rights in the Republic of Ireland

Panel 1B (Boole 1):

Female Veterans

Chair: Professor Lindsey Earner-Byrne, UCC

Filippo Barsi, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa

Brutalization and Proudness: women’s prison experience during the Anglo-Irish War explained through Bureau of Military History’s Statements by witnesses, 1913-21

Sophia Traxler, QUB

‘It would have been ridiculous to expect women to have taken part under arms’: The

Gendering of Service-Based Pensions, Female Veterans, and the Irish Free State, 1924-1934.

Máire Hussey, University of Oxford

Reading revolutionary voices ‘against the grain’: situating the Military Service Pension

Collection within a history of Irish women and welfare

11.30am – 12pm: Break

12 – 1.30pm: Parallel Panel Two

Panel 2A (Boole 2):

Women, Work and Industry

Chair: Professor Diane Urquhart, QUB

Norma Owens, University of Galway

Was the Cong Lace Industry better than Home Rule?

Dr Morgan Wait, UCD

‘If we were men they’d find other jobs for us’: Continuity Announcers at R/TÉ, 1962-73

Panel 2B (Boole 1):

State and Gender-Based Violence

Chair: Dr Deirdre Foley

Conall Ó Fátharta, Maynooth University

Saviours and Sinners: how Irish newspapers served to normalise the Magdalen Laundries as charity, 1920-1960

Ellen O’Sullivan, UCC

Masculinity, nationhood and femicide: gendered killings in Ireland, 1925-2018

Carmel Nolan, DCU

Gender-based violence policy in Ireland: the need for intersectionality and inclusivity

1.30 – 2.30pm: Lunch & WHAI Committee Meeting (Boole 1)

2.30 – 4pm: Parallel Panel Three

Panel 3A (Boole 1):

The Legacy of Revolution

Chair: Dr Fionnuala Walsh, UCD

Emma Dewhirst, QUB

‘Behold in the grave today what was yesterday the symbol of your country, and is at this

moment the symbol of resurrection’: Women and the Shaping of Political Legacy

Jennifer Geraghty-Gorman, independent scholar

The Afterlife of a Cumann na mBan girl: ‘A life the size of a postage stamp’

Shannon Forde, independent scholar

‘A poor woman like me’ – The Military Service Pension of Margaret Forde, 1934 – 1962

Panel 3B (Boole 2):

Motherhood and Childhood

Chair: Judy Bolger, TCD

Georgia Ryan, University of Galway

They Have No Time to be Ill: Maternal Health in Galway 1900-1918

Dr Cara Delay, College of Charleston

‘Beyond My Powers of Description’: Motherhood and Suffering in the Great Famine

Dr Deirdre Foley, UCC

Working motherhood in Ireland, 1965-1990

Panel 3C (Boole 6):

Perceptions of Prostitution

Chair: Dr Jay Rozman, UCC

Molly Daly, MIC

The Regulation of Prostitution in 19th Century Ireland

Dr Mary Lawton, UCC 

Creating the Literary Prostitute

4.00 – 4.15pm: Break

4.15 – 5.15pm: Keynote Address (Boole 1)

Professor Lindsey Earner-Byrne, UCC

5.15 – 5.30: Closing remarks: Professor Diane Urquhart, WHAI President