ABSTRACT
Irish higher education in the mid-nineteenth century was designed to accommodate men of the upper and middle classes. The exclusion of women from established institutions of university education was first challenged by Protestant activists and educators and women’s higher education was initially dominated by Protestant college institutions in Dublin and Belfast. The early influence of Protestant educational activists helped to provoke a competitive mobilisation by Catholic religious orders underpinned by ecclesiastical support. The Janus-faced character of the Royal University, which included female students in its examinations but sanctioned exclusion of women from its endowments, offices and many of its educational settings, created a demand for alternative educational institutions which was met by the women’s colleges. A feminist campaign led by the Irish Association of Women Graduates (IAWG) was crucial in mobilising support for the entry of women to the universities on the same basis as men in the early 1900s. The IAWG’s campaign for equality of access to co-educational university colleges faced significant opposition, not least from the women’s colleges and was successful due to highly effective advocacy by a broadly based, inter-confessional feminist organisation which transcended sectarian divisions.
