ABSTRACT
Ireland’s cultural revival has been variously described and defined; the accounts of its origins and the emphases of its labels, embracing as they have done a wide range of concepts, from ‘literary Fenianism’1 and Celtic or Gaelic Revival to Irish Renaissance, have varied so much that it is often difficult to decide when it began and what limits to place on its subject-matter. Although most would agree that literary activity which generated sufficient interest to be termed a revival occurred in the early 1880s, such dating ignores the work of those whose earlier research or original authorship sparked a later conflagration, as well as making valuable contributions to scholarship and literature in general. It has been argued2 that to single out women authors is to ‘marginalize’ them unfairly, and frequently there is much truth in this argument-which need not be limited to the literary field; but the dominance of Irish women as practitioners, exemplars and catalysts of what became a movement with a cultural impact felt far beyond the shores of the British Isles was so marked that it commands attention.
