Author: History Team

By Sarah-Anne Buckley One of the most well-worn phrases in recent years has been the 1916 Proclamation’s reference to “cherishing all of the children of the nation equally”. The line was intended to refer to all citizens not just children, but it highlights the symbolic significance of childhood and the role children and younger people… Continue reading A Youthful Revolution?

By Anne O’Dowd In 1940 the Irish Folklore Commission circulated a questionnaire – Old time Irish country dress – to schoolteachers in primary schools in the 26 counties of Ireland. It was devised to collect facts and traditions relating to clothing in a rural context regarding those with very little disposable income and who made… Continue reading Baby’s First Clothes – Clothing New-born Infants in Rural Ireland in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

By Mary Hatfield (hatfielm@tcd.ie) One of the many sources that historians of childhood use to gain insight into childhood in the past is clothing. How children were dressed, and what was considered fashionable for children manifest something of the cultural ideas and values of a particular historical moment. For example, in contemporary culture we distinguish… Continue reading Children’s Clothing in Modern Ireland

By Mary Hatfield (Hatfielm@tcd.ie) Photographs provide a rich and detailed source for exploring children’s lives and their place and role in Irish society. Even a brief glance through historic photograph collections indicates the many ways Irish childhood was constructed and experienced across different periods, classes, and localities. Since the invention of photography in the mid-nineteenth… Continue reading Photography and Irish Children: A Window into Childhood Fashion

By Lorraine McEvoy If you ever find yourself wandering around the southwestern corner of St Stephen’s Green, you are likely to stumble upon a statue called the Three Fates. Unveiled in 1956, it was a gift of gratitude from West Germany to the Irish people for humanitarian aid they provided after the Second World War.… Continue reading A Brief Reflection on Researching Children and Postwar Humanitarianism

By Mary O’Dowd Childbirth and Infant Care Touching child-bearing, women within two hours after they are delivered many times leave their beds to go fop and drink with women coming to visit them; and in our experience a soldier’s wife delivered in the camp did the same day, and within a few hours after her… Continue reading History of Children and Childhood, 1500-1700

By Mary O’Dowd There were important changes in attitudes to children in the eighteenth century. Throughout western Europe and colonial America, there was a new interest in the education and formation of children. Philosophers and writers such as Jean Jacques Rousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft and many others wrote about the rearing and education of children. There… Continue reading History of Children and Childhood, 1700-1800

Here we present an online history of children and childhood in Ireland, 1500-2000. Research on the history of children and childhood in Ireland is a relatively new. Most books and articles on the topic have appeared in the last twenty years. There are still many gaps in our knowledge. We know more, for example, about… Continue reading History of Children and Childhood in Ireland