Women and the Country House in Ireland and Britain

Terence Dooley, Maeve O'Riordan, Christopher Ridgway

• Publisher: Four Courts Press
• Year: 2018
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781846827495
• Subtopic: Women in History
• Index: History

Unveiling the untold stories of women who shaped Ireland and Britain's grand estates.

Delve into the lives of chatelaines, mothers, wives, and daughters who wielded power within the microcosm of the country house. This collection of essays draws on unseen family archives to reveal their influence on household and estate management, design, and public roles.

Discover how these women championed causes, raised families, and expressed themselves through literature. From architectural endeavors to political activism, explore their diverse activities and interests in Ireland and Britain from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. Perfect for scholars and history enthusiasts interested in women's history, gender studies, and social history.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1 The architectural endeavours of the widowed Jemima Yorke, Marchioness Grey
• 2 Families are ‘sometimes … the best at a distance’: sisters and sisters-in-law at Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire
• 3 Five women of Monksgrange
• 4 Declaring loyalty to the Union: the women of Ulster’s country houses and the organization of Ulster Day
• 5 Madeline Wyndham of Clouds and Mabel Morrison of Fonthill
• 6 Catherine Maria Bury of Charleville Castle, Co. Offaly, and the design of the country house, 1800–12
• 7 Lady Harriet Kavanagh of Borris House, 1800–85, matriarch and guardian of the future
• 8 Sisterly guidance: elite women, sorority and the life cycle, 1770–1860
• 9 ‘Lasting monuments’: Lady Gregory’s domesticated landscape and forestry
• 10 ‘I serve my God, and I fear not man’: the Rebecca Riots and a female landowner’s response to Welsh rural protest, 1843–4
• 11 The country house and the Great Famine: Mildred Darby’s novel, The hunger
• 12 Rosalind Howard, the contradictory countess of Carlisle
• 13 Elite women and their recipe books: the case of Dorothy Parsons and her Booke of Choyce Receipts, all written with her ownehand in 1666
• 14 ‘I will do myself the pleasure of now writing to you’; Louisa Conolly’s letters to her sister, Sarah Bunbury
• 15 Louisa Moore of Moore Hall: a life in letters
• List of Contributors
• Index