Join us for an eye-opening discussion tracing the treatment of women in Ireland across three centuries, uncovering stories of struggle and resilience from the 1700s to today. Leanne Calvert’s Pious and Promiscuous (Royal Irish Academy) offers an intimate glimpse of life in 18th century Presbyterian Ulster. Susan Marie Martin’s Dublin women street traders, 1882 – 1932 (Four Courts Press) explores challenges faced, and actions taken. Caroline West’s Wrong Women (Eriu) is a feminist history of the Monto, Europe’s largest red-light district from the 19th into the 20th century. Join the authors in conversation with historian Mary McAuliffe.

Please note we may be capturing candid imagery at this event for use on our social media and website.

Leanne Calvert is a historian specialising in the Irish family. Her research focuses on family, gender and sexuality in Ireland and North America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She has published extensively on Irish family life, with a particular emphasis on Presbyterian sources. Leanne has held positions at Queen’s University, Belfast, Ulster University and the University of Hertfordshire. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Irish History at the University of Limerick, where she also directs the MA History of Family programme.

Susan Marie Martin is a historical sociologist. She is a guest lecturer and research project supervisor in University College Cork’s Food Studies and Irish Foodways programme. She is the author of The Shawlies: Cork’s Women Street Traders and the ‘Merchant City’, 1901-50 (Four Courts, 2017).

Dr Caroline West holds a PhD and MA in sexuality studies and is passionate about exploring how sex reflects broader cultural and societal dynamics. She works in sexual violence prevention at university level and serves as a sex and relationship expert for Bumble in Ireland and the UK. Caroline is also an advice columnist for the Irish Independent and hosts the Glow West podcast, which focuses on sexual wellness. With over 20 years of experience in social care, she has been a media commentator on topics like consent, pornography, feminism, and sexual wellness since 2016. Her work centres on the intersections of sex, power, and knowledge, and she’s especially interested in the more unusual aspects of sexuality. Caroline is committed to dismantling shame and stigma around sex and pleasure, advocating for an inclusive culture of consent where everyone feels safe to explore their desires on their own terms.

Dr Mary McAuliffe is a historian and lecturer in Gender Studies at UCD. Her latest publications include (with Jennifer Redmond, 2024) The politics of gender and sexuality in modern Ireland; A Reader, as well as (co-authored with Harriet Wheelock) The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn: A Life Revealed through Personal Writing (2023) and Margaret Skinnider; a biography (2020), and (co-edited with Miriam Haughton and Emilie Pine) Legacies of the Magdalen Laundries: Commemoration, gender, and the Postcolonial Carceral State (Manchester University Press, 2021). She is currently completing her book on gendered and sexual violence during the revolutionary period, 1919-1923, to be published in 2026. She is a past President of the Women’s History Association of Ireland and a member of the Humanities Institute, UCD.
She was recently appointed by Minister Catherine Martin to the Women’s
Museum Advisory Committee.

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