Bad Bridgets: ‘There were often these large groups of Irish women drinking together on the streets’

When historians Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick decided to research the lives of Irish women who emigrated to America and Canada in the 1800s, they were shocked by what they found.

The pair uncovered a world in which Irish women, who they’ve dubbed Bad Bridgets, actually outnumbered Irish men in prison, where mothers had their children taken away, and in the struggle to survive, many took up sex work.

“It wasn’t just that Irish women migrated and became nuns and teachers and servants and they got married and everything was great,” explains McCormick of Ulster University.

It was the complete opposite of that in fact: “In New York, in 1862 there were more than 14,000 Irish women in prison, which represented 86% of the entire prison population,” says Farrell.

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Through the pair’s five years spent researching court records and police reports, they found alcohol to be a contributing factor in a lot of the crimes.

“There were often these large groups of Irish women drinking together on the streets,” says McCormick.

“When they’re outside, they’re probably making a lot of noise, they’re making a nuisance of themselves, they mightn’t be doing anything actually criminal as such, but their presence on the street is enough for them to be arrested,” she continues.

In this episode of The Irish Times Women’s Podcast, which was originally broadcast in February 2021, the pair speak to presenter Róisín Ingle about the Bad Bridget podcast series and the women that history chose to forget.

Their new book Bad Bridget: Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women is out now.

Listen back to this conversation in the player above, or wherever you get your podcasts.