Stars, Shells and Bluebells: Women Scientists and Pioneers by Women in Technology and Science (WITS), WITS, 180pp, £4.95
She was the first woman to loop-the-loop and to make a parachute jump of 15,000 feet; she campaigned to have women admitted to the Olympic Games in 1928; she used to patrol a coffee plantation in Kenya on a Harley Davidson. Such was the life of one Sophie Peirce, pioneering aviator, athlete . . . and Limerick woman, to boot.
Or how about Agnes Mary Clerke from Skibbereen, after whom a crater was recently named on the moon? Or fellow Cork woman Cynthia Longfield, an international dragonfly expert and fearless explorer? Or Maude Jane Delap, who was intimate with the complex life-cycle of the medusa or jellyfish? These are just four of fifteen forgotten Irish women who made a major contribution to science over the last two centuries.
Nine authors, mainly scientists, have chronicled the lives and times of these "scientific grandmothers", most of whom had to persevere to make their mark in a male-dominated domain.
Some were refused access to institutions and research facilities. Significantly, as Mary Cullen notes in her introduction, quite a few of them were clergymen's daughters.
The book was sponsored by the Department of Education and Science, and has a foreword by the former president, Mary Robinson; the text was edited by Mary Mulvihill. If this is a celebration and an education, it is also a shocking revelation. Congratulations to WITS for putting these women back on the map . . .
Lorna Siggins is an Irish Times staff journalist