The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn
A Life Revealed through Personal Writing
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University College Dublin Press
Published:1st Oct '23
£40.00
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The diaries of Dr Kathleen Lynn, 1916-1955, cover her involvement in the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence, the Civil War, and the formative three and a half decades of the Irish Free State. They demonstrate the revolutionary, socialist and feminist fervour of a radical revolutionary woman, what motivated her and the work she did for women, workers, and Ireland. The diaries, held in the archives of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI), reveal the often-difficult road that radical political women forged in the new Irish Free State, which viewed women through the constraining lens of marriage, motherhood, and domesticity. The diaries are also revealing of the supportive networks of political women, who worked together for social and political change. Central to the diaries is Lynn's vital work in St Ultan's Hospital for Sick Infants which she co-founded in 1919. Her diaries demonstrate vividly the number of women who led advances in medical care in the first decades of the State alongside Lynn. The diaries also record her family and personal relationships, especially her lifelong relationship with fellow suffragist, revolutionary and social campaigner, Madeline ffrench-Mullen. Few political women of the revolutionary era and Irish Free State have left behind as substantial an archive as Dr Kathleen Lynn. The publication of these selected extracts from her diaries are a move to readdress issues created by past archival practices which have, in many cases, marginalised or silenced the voices of women. The diaries add not only to our knowledge of the life of Dr Lynn but also to the histories of female activists, female networks, and intimate female lives in the Irish State during its formative decades. Edited by Mary McAuliffe and Harriet Wheelock with a foreword by Emma Donoghue.
'Lynn's diaries are among the few eyewitness sources we have for a radical, revolutionary, socialist, and republican woman.'- RTE Brainstorm, 13 Nov 2023.; 'Casts new light on many of the political and social concerns of three decades of Irish life. This volume is a significant addition to Irish history. For me, though, The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn is a book about the human condition and how love sustains us.'; - Clodagh Finn, Irish Examiner, 11 Nov 2023.; 'Through a careful selection of excerpts from Lynn's extensive personal diaries, which commence in 1916 and continue almost daily until her death in 1955, The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn: A Life Revealed through Personal Writing provides an extraordinarily close insight into Lynn's social, private and political life, and her relationship with many of the key political figures of Ireland in the first half of the 20th century.' - Connaught Telegraph, 4 Oct 2023.; 'Alive & throbbing, indeed, as long as breath was in her, and the world was better for the marks she left on it, which is only one reason why the long-overdue publication of a selection of Kathleen Lynn journals is a cause for what she would have called a loud hip hip DG.' - Emma Donoghue, Irish Examiner, 16 Oct 2023.; 'The diaries demonstrate the revolutionary, socialist and feminist fervour of a radical revolutionary woman, what motivated her and the work she did for women, workers, and Ireland.' - Monmouthshire Beacon, November 2023.; ‘A thorough introduction. The editors underwent a rigorous process when selecting “a representative sample of Lynn's words and life” ... An exceptional record of the opinions and emotions of an extraordinary, if modest and self-effacing, woman.’ - Sylvie Kleinman, History Ireland, January 2024.; 'Diary of a true radical.’ - Brian Maye, Irish Times, Dec 2023.
ISBN: 9781910820018
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
350 pages