Women, Writing, and Language in Early Modern Ireland

This book examines writing in English, Irish, and Spanish by women living in Ireland and by Irish women living on the continent between 1574 and 1676. This was a tumultuous period of political, religious, and linguistic contestation that encompassed the key power struggles of early modern Ireland. Marie-Louise Coolahan brings to light the ways in which women contributed, forging space for their voices in complex ways, and engaging with both native and new language-traditions to produce writing in a variety of genres, including nuns' writing, poetry, petition-letters, depositions, biography, and autobiography. She elucidates the social, political, and economic constraints that impelled women to write, examines the ways in which women characterized female composition, and describes an extensive range of cross-cultural, multi-lingual activity to provide a cohesive account of women's writing in early modern Ireland.