The daughters of the first earl of Cork: writing family, faith, politics and place. By Ann-Maria Walsh. Pp 178. Dublin: Four Courts Press. 2020. €45 hardback

• Published in: Irish Historical Studies Vol. 45; no. 168; pp. 335 - 336
• Main Author: Tait, Clodagh
• Format: Book Review Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.11.2021
• Subjects: Autobiographical literature; Cultural identity; Families & family life; Husbands; Interpersonal relations; Letters; Memoranda; Prose; Religion; Reviews and short notices; Self concept; Women; Writing
• ISSN: 0021-1214; 2056-4139
• DOI: 10.1017/ihs.2021.33

Ann-Maria Walsh has trawled the Boyle archives in Chatsworth and Dublin as well as collections in other repositories, pulling out ‘letters, a diary and autobiography, a memorandum book, accounts books, medical receipt books, a prose treatise, and pious meditations’ that vividly bring to life a group of seventeenth-century women who lived across and between the Irish and British Isles. Walsh uses their words and their stories to weave together a portrait of this group of Anglo-Irish noblewomen, considering their roles within their families and communities, their experiences during war and peace, their networks and personal relationships, their contributions to intellectual and religious cultures, their construction of identity and self-presentation via their writing, and the impact of their ‘bifurcated existence’ and movement between Ireland and Britain. Mary's spiritual diary comes into its own here, illustrating aspects of her beliefs and religious practices, and how they were shaped by sermon-going and contacts with clerics from a variety of points on the Protestant spectrum.