Irish Women in Religious Orders, 1530–1700: Suppression, Migration and Reintegration, by Bronagh Ann McShane

In recent years, scholarship on early modern religious orders in the British Isles has expanded into a lively subfield that has rewritten post-Reformation historiography, yet the history of Irish women religious has remained largely unknown. Bronagh Ann McShane fills this gap with a groundbreaking monograph that sketches the history of Irish women from the dissolution of the monasteries through the aftermath of the Cromwellian campaigns. Based on meticulous archival research, McShane pieces together the lives of early modern Irish women religious in an act of recovery that is timely, enlightening and impressive.

As McShane explains in the introduction, the book discusses two groups: nuns (those who took solemn vows, maintained enclosure, and followed a contemplative life) and quasi-religious women (those who took simple vows, did not observe enclosure, and undertook ministries). Since the archival records of Irish women’s religious communities are fragmentary, this expansive definition of ‘religious’ provides a richer corpus of source materials than that offered by a focus on conventual communities alone.

In the first two chapters, McShane examines how Henry VIII’s campaign to suppress Irish monasteries affected female religious communities. As Chapter One notes, Ireland had thirty-three convents in 1530, with between one and six nuns residing in each. The first wave of suppression occurred in 1537, targeting smaller convents in the border areas of the Pale. 1539 saw a concentrated effort to close monasteries located in English territories, and local authorities in Gaelic areas began to suppress religious houses during 1541 to solidify their ties with English leaders. Carefully chosen case-studies demonstrate the uneven progress of dissolution and the stratagems women religious employed to navigate the ensuing upheaval. While an Augustinian priory at Timolin was probably the first to be suppressed due to its great wealth, Prioress Mary Cusack of Lismullen, another very well-endowed Augustinian foundation, astutely negotiated the highest pension of any female religious in Ireland (£16 per year). Significantly, the person in charge of suppressing Lismullen was the prioress’s own brother by blood. Chapter Two covers the experiences of Irish women religious after the dissolution, many of whom found ways to maintain quasi-monastic forms of life. Some houses in Gaelic areas continued to function after their ostensible dissolution, while other communities lived residentially, either on their old premises or with lay patrons. Women also embarked on alternatives to formal religious life. A Jesuit priest founded a highly controversial group of women called Mná Bochta, who took a vow of chastity, lived outside of enclosure, and undertook an apostolate to serve prostitutes. Small communities of female Dominican and Franciscan tertiaries were established in secrecy, while other women lived individually according to simple vows. Thus, the dissolution did not end female religious life in Ireland but rather drove it underground.

The third and fourth chapters situate Irish women religious within a broader European context by examining the experiences of exiles. In Chapter Three, McShane focuses on Irish women who became students or religious at convents on the Continent, whether in communities for English women or local women. Parents sent their daughters to the Continent so that they could learn Catholic doctrine as well as foreign languages, thereby acquiring a genteel finish while also preparing to instruct their future children. Meanwhile, approximately eighty Irish women, largely from elite backgrounds, joined English convents between 1600 and 1800. These institutions appealed to Irish recruits since there was no language barrier for those from Old English families. Yet because Irish women faced prejudice based on their national identity, the next logical step was to establish houses for women of their nationality. In 1626, five Irish nuns left the English Poor Clares at Gravelines in order to found their own convent. After encountering financial and logistical difficulties first at Dunkirk and then at Nieuport, this group relocated to Dublin. Chapter Four covers the history of a slightly later venture, the Irish Dominican convent of Nossa Senhora do Bom Sucesso in Lisbon. Founded in 1639 with a generous bequest by a widowed Portuguese noblewoman, this institution benefited from its proximity to two Irish colleges in the city. Yet, as McShane documents, the house was also extremely popular among local women, becoming a site of cultural mediation where Irish and Portuguese traditions intermingled.

The final three chapters return to Ireland for a consideration of how Irish women religious negotiated changing circumstances in the seventeenth century. In Chapter Five, McShane demonstrates that Irish women religious flourished during a period of loosened restrictions on Catholics in the 1620s and 1630s. The Nieuport Poor Clares, for example, established a thriving house in Dublin, relocating to Lough Rea after the seizure of their assets in 1630. Their continued success resulted in new foundations at Drogheda and Galway, the latter of which survives today. Galway likewise was home to Augustinian and Dominican houses, while tertiary houses prospered in Drogheda and elsewhere. As Chapter Six reveals, however, these institutions endured great suffering after Cromwell’s conquest of Ireland destroyed the Catholic elite. Some women religious went into exile in Spain and France, an experience that Mary Bonaventure Browne described as a form of martyrdom. Those religious who remained in Ireland faced actual martyrdom, as shown by the example of two Dominican tertiaries who died after a brutal attack on their priory and persons. Chapter Seven discusses the ambiguous and peripheral role of women religious after the Restoration, a period that saw the temporary foundation of an Irish Benedictine house in Dublin as well as the reconstitution of the Galway Poor Clares and the establishment of a Discalced Carmelite monastery in Lough Rea.

As McShane observes in the conclusion, ‘The story of Irish female religious foundations during the period 1530–1700 is one of remarkable resilience’ (p. 248). In McShane’s hands, this story is as engrossing as it is illuminating. Scholars of the early modern period will find much to admire in this remarkable monograph, which will be of interest to those working in the fields of history, religion, women’s studies and literature.