13 Oct 2005

Dictionary of Munster Women Writers to be launched at UCC, 14 October

The Dictionary of Munster Women Writers - a biographical listing of Munster women who were writing between 1800 and 2000 - will be published at UCC on Friday, 14th October by Cork University Press.  The Dictionary, edited by Dr Tina O'Toole, is the result of a research project devised by UCC English Department's Prof Patricia Coughlan and Dr Éibhear Walshe.  It includes writers in English and Irish, and casts a wide net over many kinds of work: novels, poetry, plays, and also prayers, songs, letters, diaries, cookery and travel books, and scientific writings of various kinds. 

The Dictionary which has entries on 560 writers, including 220 in the Irish language, affords a unique insight into the cultural and social life of the province of Munster, a region with its own particular characteristics, from market towns and prosperous rural hinterlands to more sparsely populated uplands and coasts, where the Irish language flourished for longer.  Based on extensive specialist research, the Dictionary casts a fresh light into the lives of the women of Munster.  Farmers' daughters and nuns in convents, clergymen's wives and pioneering scientists, prolific Victorian novelists and writers of national and international status, from Peig Sayers through Elizabeth Bowen via the two O'Briens (Kate and Edna) and from Molly Keane to Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, all appear in a fresh light.

The project was funded by the government-funded Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI), as part of the extensive Women in Society Project.  The Cultural Committee of Cork 2005 has granted funding to aid its publication.

It is planned to make the Dictionary available on the Internet during 2006 in the form of a searchable database.  It will be launched on Friday, 14 October by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.  Also present will be poets Leanne O'Sullivan and Roz Cowman who will give short readings, and Professor Tom Dunne. 

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