Cork city librarian Liam Ronayne has paid tribute to researcher Dr Mary Pierse of the English department at University College Cork for her generosity in donating a copy of her study of Irish women, Irish Feminism 1810-1930to the library. Dr Pierse used digitised material at Cork city library. The result is a study which includes facsimiles of texts, poetry, short stories, journals and newspaper articles, many of which have been out of print for decades.
Dr Pierse says that while the history of feminism reveals conflicting interpretations of the female role in society, the situation in Ireland was complicated by national uprisings, land war, world war and the growing hegemony of a strongly religious patriarchy.