Mary Robinson (President of Ireland)

Women and the Irish Diaspora looks at the changing nature of national and cultural belonging both among women who have left Ireland and those who remain. It identifies new ways of thinking about Irish modernity by looking specifically at women's lives and their experiences of migration and diaspora. Based on original research with Irish women both in Ireland and in England, this book explores how questions of mobility and stasis are recast along gender, class, racial and generational lines. Through analyses of representations of 'the strong Irish mother', migrant women, 'the global Irish family' and celebrity culture, Breda Gray further unravels some of the complex relationships between femininity and Irish modernity(ies).

Incorporating extensive new research that allows him to make richer interpretations, Richard Finnegan considers such issues as the impact on church-state relations of the national referenda on divorce & abortion, the rise & fall of governments & political figures, the pathbreaking potential of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, & the effects on the country of changes in the European Community.

This unique social history spans the last half century, when developments in birth control and the education of women have increased opportunities for women to have successful careers. This book investigates how the first generation of modern women faced the challenge of combining marriage and family with professional responsibilities. Olivia Cox-Fill, an Irish journalist and professional filmmaker, interviewed hundreds of prominent women from 10 different countries on three continents before presenting this group portrait of 29 interviews of women leaders, diplomats, award-winning scientists, government ministers, doctors, and industrialists, to name a few of the professions represented.