She said she was in the family way': Pregnancy and infancy in modern Ireland

'She said she was in the family way' examines the subject of pregnancy and infancy in Ireland from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. It draws on exciting and innovative research by early-career and established academics, and consider topics that have been largely ignored by historians in Ireland. The book will make an important contribution to Irish women’s history, family history, childhood history, social history, crime history and medical history, and will provide a reference point for academics interested in themes of sexuality, childbirth, infanthood and parenthood

The Irish Rover: Phil Lynott and the Search for Identity

Phil Lynott, the lead singer of the rock band Thin Lizzy, was a complex character. An illegitimate black child who grew up in a working-class, Catholic district of Dublin, Ireland in the 1950s, Lynott spent his life searching for a sense of belonging, something which he explored through rock and roll. This study uses Lynott’s song lyrics to investigate his quest for identity. In particular, it identifies the many recurring themes and archetypes in his music that offered multifaceted self-portraits of his internal conflict between being black, Irish, illegitimate, a rockstar, a Lothario, a son, a father, and a husband, all at the same time

Wandering graveyards, jumping churches and lone Protestants: devotion, sectarianism and problematic corpses in Irish folklore

Graveyards and those buried within them were frequently the subject of comment in Irish folk tradition. The presence of the bodies of those locally reputed as saints and martyrs excited local pride and physical remains reputed to be those of holy people were often hailed as having curative and magical properties. The graveyard itself was sacred, and insults against it might be revenged by its ghostly occupants themselves. Though a resource for the community in devotional and practical terms, graveyards and the bodies within them could also be a focus for conflict and competition. While a very large degree of co-interment of Protestants and Catholics was practiced, tensions could appear in certain areas. Tales of the separation of Protestant and Catholic burials, and of churchyards rejecting the bodies of Protestants and even leaving their original sites out of pique when Protestants were buried there can be found throughout Ireland, demonstrating the complications of inter-denominational relationships at local level. This paper argues that the tales told about graveyards assisted in the construction of local and confessional identities and impressed on sacred space the map of human relationships within parishes