Catholic Convent Schools and the History of Irish Girlhood: Curriculum and Continuity 1780–1920

Abstract

This article traces the educational mission of three Catholic convent boarding schools from the late eighteenth century until the 1920s, highlighting striking similarities in Catholic female education across different temporal and geographical contexts. Using institutional records, community annals and student roll books, this article considers how the priorities and structure of female education can shed light on implicit assumptions held by Catholic woman about the nature of girlhood and the purpose of education. It aims at a fuller understanding of the pedagogical model shared by these boarding schools and provides evidence of a strong cultural continuity in the ideals of Catholic girlhood across time. In doing so, it contributes to a perennial debate within the history of childhood on the historical narrativisation of continuity.