First Woman Professor in Ireland or Great Britain
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First Woman Professor in Ireland or Great Britain
28.06.2010

UCC today (Monday, June 28th 2010) celebrates the centenary of the appointment as professor of Mary Ryan, the first female in either Ireland or Great Britain to be appointed to a professorship.

The ground breaking achievement, against the odds and the patriarchal spirit of the times, places Mary Ryan in the vanguard of high achieving Irish women and marks June 28th 1910 as a date when the promise of new possibilities for women in higher education was put on the agenda.  Today’s celebrations in UCC, hosted by the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, will include a special message from former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, to mark this historic event.

Appointed as Professor of Romance Languages at University College Cork, one hundred years ago today, during her thirty years  of tenure, Mary Ryan not only taught generations of undergraduate students, but won a formidable reputation for sending her postgraduate students to the Sorbonne. She was awarded a DLitt for her published work and the French government bestowed on her the coveted Legion of Honour rosette. 

Mary Ryan’s successes are remarkable when one realizes how hard they were won.  She was raised in a milieu, where religious and social convention prevented her from ever stepping foot into the lecture hall as an undergraduate. Although the rules of the Queen’s Colleges did not preclude women, society and the church discouraged women from attending University. The Universities were complicit in this – there was no encouragement for women to attend – and if they did, their world was not an easy one – they often met opposition, resentment and ridicule. 

However, Mary Ryan, found ways around these restrictions.  Mary studied for her University examinations at St. Angela’s School in Cork.  The Ursuline sisters took a stance that if women students could not physically attend the University then the sisters brought education to their students by engaging lecturers privately. The sisters established what was known as a ‘University top’. This was advanced teaching which allowed students to follow the University curriculum and sit the examinations without attending lectures. In later life, Mary Ryan recalled that the only contact she had with the University as an undergraduate was sitting the BA honours examinations in what she described as the hugely intimidating halls in Earlsfort Terrace Dublin.

From these beginnings, Mary Ryan was awarded her BA degree in 1895 and just 15 years later was appointed Professor of Romance Languages in the newly titled UCC. 

Mary Ryan was a woman of her time, unassuming in her achievements and spiritually devout.  Obituaries published at the time of her death in 1961 barely touch her remarkable accomplishments, but make extensive references to the success of her brothers all of whom achieved distinction in their professional careers. 

Picture: UCC President, Dr Michael Murphy with members of the Ryan family, from left, Dodette Ryan, Jacinta Ryan and Andrea Ryan

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