Offaly lecture on women’s experiences of the Great War in Ireland

A LECTURE on Irish women's experience of the Great War (1914-1918) will be given next Monday at 8pm by Dr Fionnuala Walsh.

The lecture takes place in the Offaly History Centre at Bury Quay in Tullamore and all are welcome.

This lecture discusses the impact of the Great War on ordinary women's lives in Ireland.

With over 200,000 Irish men serving in the wartime British Army, the war's effects were inevitably felt at home. Drawing on extensive primary research, this lecture explores life on the home front for women, focusing on women’s voluntary work for the war effort with the Red Cross and Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, the impact of the war on women’s employment opportunities, and its effects on domestic life.

The lasting effects of the war for women with regard to bereavement and employment are also briefly examined.

There will be some local case studies of Offaly women included highlighting the commonalities of wartime Offaly with the wider national experience.

Dr Fionnuala Walsh is Assistant Professor of Modern Irish History at University College Dublin. She completed her PhD and Postdoctoral Fellowship in Trinity College Dublin.

Her first monograph,  Irish women and the Great War, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020 and will shortly be available in paperback.

It was joint winner of the National University of Ireland Publication Prize in Irish History in 2021. Dr Walsh is Secretary of the Women’s History Association of Ireland.