Lecture on realities of childhood over the past two centuries for Offaly centre

THE “Realities of Rural Childhoods in Modern Ireland: Birth, Life and Death in 19th and 20th Century County Donegal” is the title of Offaly History's December lecture.

It will be given by Megan McAuley on monday week next, December 12 at 8pm in the Offaly History Centre, Bury Quay, Tullamore.

You can attend in person or by zoom by connecting with the following link https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83092369456

Charge on the night is €2 to members and €5 to non members.

What did childhood in Offaly and Donegal look like in Post-Famine Ireland? This lecture will discuss the lived experiences of rural Irish children, from birth to death, in nineteenth and twentieth century Ireland.

The discussion starts at the beginning of the life cycle, with experiences of family planning, pregnancy, childbirth and infant care in rural Ireland. Following this, the impact of illegitimacy, adoption, fostering and boarding-out on rural infants and children will be considered. Next, the day-to-day lives of rural children will be illuminated, first by analysing both domestic and institutional living spaces, then by discussing aspects of daily life such as education, work and play.

Finally, this paper will explore infant and child health and welfare in rural Ireland, alongside the question of why such significant numbers did not survive past infancy and childhood. Although this paper focuses on evidence from County Donegal, examples from County Offaly will be used to highlight the commonalities, and differences, of the rural childhood experience across the island of Ireland in the modern period.

Megan McAuley is a third-year PhD candidate in Maynooth University working under the supervision of Dr Jennifer Redmond.

She previously received a BA in History and Nua-Ghaeilge and an MA in Irish History from MU, with first-class honours in both degrees. She was awarded a John and Pat Hume Fee-Waiver Scholarship from MU, the NUI Denis Phelan Scholarship 2020 and the Offaly History/P&H Egan Scholarship to fund her doctoral studies.

Her PhD research focuses on rural childhood experiences in modern Ireland with a case study of County Donegal from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Her research explores themes such as institutionalisation, education, work, play, and health, among others, through lenses of analysis such as gender, class and language.

Megan has co-authored a chapter on her research with her supervisor Dr Redmond in Salvador Ryan (ed.), Birth and the Irish: A Miscellany (Dublin: Wordwell, 2021) and has also been published in volume 22 of History Studies, the student journal of the University of Limerick.