Munster Women Writers Recovery Project Background
This collection is the output of a data recovery project completed in 2022. The database was previously available online from 2007-2013 on a dedicated Munster Women Writers Project (MWWP) website munsterwomen.ie which no longer exists.
The original MWWP outputs were published in print as Dictionary of Munster Women Writers, 1800-2000 Dr Tina O'Toole, editor (2005) [ISBN:9781859183885] and a digital resource, in the form of a searchable database on the MWWP website.
This recovery project returned to the digital domain data gathered by the original MWWP (1999-2002), with the focus being on a subset of content of the database itself (writers associated with Co Tipperary). This DRI collection also includes associated web resources (images, code) and ancillary documentation (original selection criteria, project structure etc.) from the original MWWP, positioning the online database as one of the first Digital Humanities projects undertaken in Ireland.
The Dictionary of Munster Women Writers and its online database comprise 560 entries in total. The dictionary/database is bilingual, using both the Irish and English language. No entries appear in translation.
munsterwomen.ie
An archived instance of the original Munster Women Writers Project websitemunsterwomen.iehas been preserved on the Internet Archive at:https://web.archive.org/web/20071129132115/http://munsterwomen.ie/
Background to the Women and Irish Society Project
Women and Irish Society: Understanding the Past and Present Through Archives and Social Research
The Munster Women Writers project was part of a three strand interdisciplinary research initiative entitled 'Women and Irish Society: Understanding the Past and Present Through Archives and Social Research'. The Women and Irish Society project (WISP) was funded under the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI 1) and represented a collaborative venture between staff from the Departments of Applied Social Studies, English and Sociology in University College Cork. Launched in February 2000, the initiative sought to illuminate the transformation of women's lives in Irish society over time and place, through sociological, literary and applied social research. The Principal Investigator was Professor Patricia Coughlan, University College Cork.
Women and Literature
Women and Literature was one of three project strands which, as the Munster Women Writers Project, compiled a detailed scholarly bibliography of Munster women writers from 1800 onwards with a view to exploring the role of regional, class and gender factors in the formation and literary achievement of key writers. The original data gathering (1999-2002) was extensive and involved multiple researchers, producing content in both the Irish and English language. The database provided both a biographical and bibliographic record of 664 Irish women writers from, or associated with, the Munster region, who were active between 1800 and 2000. The research was primarily undertaken by Dr Tina O’Toole while based in the Department of English in UCC.
Irish Women at Work Oral History Project
The oral history strand of the project documented the working lives of women in the Munster counties of Cork, Kerry and Limerick, during the period 1936-1960. It provided a rich repository of data about women’s experiences of work, family life and schooling, and their impressions of change in women's lives in Ireland. It has also been deposited in DRI as Irish Women at Work [DOI: https://doi.org/10.7486/DRI.h9904j002]
Feminism and the Women's Movement
Project leader Dr. Linda Connolly and project researcher Dr. Tina O'Toole identified archives and sources documenting aspects of the political, social and intellectual development of feminism and the women's movement in the Irish context. The material was published in print as a documentary chronicle and a sociological analysis of feminist politics and the women's movement Documenting Irish Feminisms: The Second Wave [ISBN: ISBN 0-9534293-5-0]
