Winner of the Triennial Conference of the History of Women Religious Distinguished Book Award 2025

This book charts the history of how Irish-born nuns became involved in education in the Anglophone world. It presents a heretofore undocumented study of how these women left Ireland to establish convent schools and colleges for women around the globe. It challenges the dominant narrative that suggests that Irish teaching Sisters, also commonly called nuns, were part of the colonial project, and shows how they developed their own powerful transnational networks. Though they played a role in the education of the ‘daughters of the Empire’, they retained strong bonds with Ireland, reproducing their own Irish education in many parts of the Anglophone world.

Deirdre Raftery is Professor at University College Dublin, Ireland. Her research interests focus on the history of women and girls in the long nineteenth century, and the history of convent schools and convent education.