Professor Mary E. Daly

Mary Daly is a professor of Modern Irish History at University College Dublin. She is also the president of the Royal Irish Academy and the first woman to hold this position.

She was educated at UCD and received her doctorate from Nuffield College Oxford (D. Phil.). Her academic career has been with UCD and she has held visiting positions at Harvard, Boston College and EUI Florence.

While working in UCD, Mary was the founding director of the Humanities Institute of Ireland and principal of the College of Arts and Celtic Studies. She was a member of the Irish Manuscripts Commission from 1993-2005, the National Archives Advisory Council from 1995-2006 and the Higher Education Authority 2008-2012. She is part of the Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s Expert Advisory Committee on Commemorations 2012 and forward.

The historical context

Mary’s research and publications have focused on the history of Ireland in the 19th and 20th centuries. She has written no less than 15 books, six of which were co-authored. This places her in an ideal position to give us a broad sweep of the changes in the lives of rural women – primarily farmers’ wives – over the past 150 plus years.

She will show that women have always played a central role in farming and the rural economy, whether this was done by spinning, knitting or lace-making, or making butter, caring for hens and preserving bacon.

However, the State and indeed the wider rural society did not necessarily recognise this. The population census, both before and after independence, failed to count farmers’ wives as part of the agricultural labour force.

The late economist Raymond Crotty used the proportion of farms headed by women as a measure of inefficient, backward farming.

When the government in the 1960s introduced the Succession Bill to ensure that widows and children had a statutory entitlement to a share of a family estate, the farming community fought hard to prevent its enactment and delayed it for several years.

Yet rural women have been a major force in modernising agriculture and rural life. They led the campaign for rural water – often against the opposition of farm organisations – a campaign that was an essential step in improving the quality of life.

By the 1960s/1970s, farm wives, who often had longer schooling than their husbands, increasingly took responsibility for the growing paperwork required on a modern farm.

The growing opportunities and need for off-farm employment in rural Ireland has meant that many women now contribute an important salary to sustain the farm household, while others take primary responsibility for running a farm while their husband holds down a non-agricultural job.

Mary lives in Monkstown, close to Dublin Bay. She and her husband enjoy walking beside the sea. She is mother to four adult children and enjoys regular visits from her three small grandsons.

The changing roles on the Irish family farm: Sally Shortall

Sally Shortall, professor of Sociology, Queen’s University Belfast, will be known to many farming women from her work on the NOW programme with Macra na Feirme several years ago.

Sally works in Queen’s University Belfast. Her main research interests are the role of women on farms and in rural development, rural development policy, social changes in farming practice and the links between evidence and policy.

Sally did her Master’s degree and PhD research on farm women over 25 years ago in Laois and Kildare.

She did research on farm women in Canada when she lived there for two years and, more recently, she has carried out research on farm families in Northern Ireland. Sally has prepared reports on farm women for the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the Australian government.

Farming is something that Sally understands as she grew up on a farm in Laois and has two brothers who are farming. She has twin 16-year-old boys and has lived in Belfast for over 20 years.

Roles in farm households

At this year’s Women and Agriculture conference, Sally is going to talk about her research on farm women over the span of her career.

She will look at how the role of women on farms has changed since she started doing her Master’s research in 1986. Women are more likely to be financially independent and have off-farm employment now than they did then. The way men and women refer to each other has changed over time. How men on farms feel about their role has also changed over time. Some of these changes reflect more general social change.

While change has occurred, Sally will also talk about some of the continuities and the things that have not changed. Men still predominantly inherit land. Women’s work is still crucial to the survival of the family farm, even if the nature of that work has changed.

Another element that remains unchanged is the farm family’s commitment to the survival of the family farm.

Book by contacting the Irish Farmers Journal on 01-419-9505 or click here to get your tickets now.