Introduction

When gender was put forward as a ‘useful category of historical analysis’ by Joan  Scott in a pivotal chapter published in 1986, Irish historiography was still dominated by grand narrative political histories and biographies of elite men.1 Scott’s  title was initially posed as a question but the journal’s editors requested that she  drop the question mark, as they clearly misunderstood the continuum she aimed  to disrupt. To Scott, gender was not only a useful category; it also helped women’s  history to earn legitimacy within an often-hostile academy. Irish women’s history  had begun to gain traction from the late 1970s thanks to the work of pioneers  like Margaret MacCurtain, Mary Cullen, Rosemary Cullen-Owens and Arlen  Press, but gained further positive momentum with the foundation of the Women’s  History Association of Ireland in 1989.