The third installment in Salvador Ryan’s series, Birth, Marriage, and Death Among the Irish, starts at the beginning: before we know the joys of marriage and the throes of death, we are brought into this world through the universal act—but unique cultural experience—of birth. In Birth and the Irish: A Miscellany, Salvador Ryan has edited a collection of seventy-eight essays about the birth experience in Ireland and within the Irish diaspora, laid out before the reader in chronological order, from the seventh century to the present.
As the title suggests, the book includes a miscellany of topics relating to birth. In the introduction, Ryan warns us that in the book “there are articles that will make you laugh; others will make you cry; others will make you recoil in horror at what you have just read; more will simply render you silent, alone with your thoughts” (xiv). On this emotional voyage through Ireland’s history, readers can expect to find information on birth in specific environments, such as battlefields and the Victorian goldfields; birth as depicted in the legends of Fionn Mac Cumhaill; the impact of religious and social expectations of birth and motherhood; folk beliefs about conception, pregnancy, and birth; methods of determining paternity; fertility control; birth and death; and more. The list of topics I have written here only offers a glimpse into the rich contents of the book. Whether readers are on the hunt for very specific research material or has a broad interest in birth and/or Irish culture, they are sure to find something useful in Birth and the Irish: A Miscellany.
The essays in the book are not a disjointed amalgamation of research thrown onto the page, however. Each essay attests to the joys and, more often, the difficulties of childbirth felt by women throughout Ireland’s past, effectively expanding the historical record to include the voices of the women themselves. The contributing authors of the pieces are an eclectic bunch of scholars from a variety of disciplines, each contributing what Ryan refers to as “small tiles in an impressive mosaic” (xiv). In the essays, the authors use engaging case studies to prove broader points about how people viewed childbirth and women’s experiences, utilizing an array of source materials to spin the narratives of women and their histories that are not readily found in more circulated literature or other modes of popular culture.
For example, in the essay “Pleading the Belly? Pregnant Behind Bars in Medieval Ireland,” Yvonne Seale uses court records to stitch together the details of a woman’s pregnancy in the early fourteenth century. Similarly, in “Who’s the Daddy? Determining Cases of Disputed Paternity in the Eighteenth-century Presbyterian Community,” Leanne Calvert utilizes court documents to point out how legal proceedings surrounding questions of paternity affected the mothers of the babies in question. Clodagh Tait, in the essay “The Many Labours of Ellinor Appleyard Hallaran,” pulls information about Ellinor, a mother of eighteen children who lived in eighteenth-century Ireland, from the commonplace book her husband kept. In his book, Thady Hallaran noted when each of his children was born, as well as information about how many midwives were in attendance, and how many hours his wife was in labor (85). More examples of sources used in the collection of essays include “Baptism Records as a Source for Social History 1: Birth, Naming and Godparenthood in Nineteenth-century Cloyne,” and “Baptism Registers as a Source for Social History 2: Births Outside Marriage in Nineteenth-century Cloyne,” both written by Clodagh Tait and bearing descriptive titles that speak for themselves. After an essay full of information from court documents and church registers, Brendan Scott reminds us in his entry, “Foundling Births in Nineteenth-century Cavan,” that “it is easy to forget the heartbreak, sorrow and regret which is behind every story mentioned in this short essay” (129). I think it is easy to overlook the lived experience behind the written word in all the examples listed above. These essays I have mentioned here are only a small selection of what one can find in this book, but they all showcase how the authors included in this collection utilize historical documents by reading between the lines to document the realities of conception, pregnancy, and birth among women in Ireland’s past.
The wide range of topics included in Birth and the Irish: A Miscellany make it a useful source for a wide variety of people. Scholars of history, folklore, Celtic studies, and gender and sexuality, among other disciplines, are bound to find something useful within this vast collection of essays. The entries are generally only a few pages in length, and some authors take a more reflective approach in their writing, rather than sticking to a theory-laden, strictly academic style. Thus, the writing style and format—lots of short, rich essays—also makes the book accessible to people outside of the list of academic disciplines given above. The book allows scholars to comfortably branch outside of their disciplines into neighboring topics, while also providing a public audience with an engaging and information-packed read.
Overall, I had a good time reading Birth and the Irish: A Miscellany. Sitting down and reading the book cover to cover was not the best way to utilize it, though. This method offered a somewhat jarring experience, where I would become invested in a topic just for the short essay to end and move quickly on to the next subject. This was fun at times, though, like having a bite-size taste of a niche topic within the larger umbrella of Irish birth—one that promised the thrill of a research rabbit hole in which to fall, if I wanted. The large collection of short essays did mean that there was some overlap that became obvious in the cover-to-cover readthrough. The redundancy in the contextual details was at most a minor annoyance to me, but one that was noticeable enough to mention here. Still, I think Birth and the Irish: A Miscellany is an excellent addition to the Birth, Marriage, and Death Among the Irish series. It is a helpful resource to scholars in its entirety, an excellent sourcebook in which to pick and choose relevant essays, and overall, an engaging and educational read whatever method one chooses to enjoy it.
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[Review length: 1043 words • Review posted on December 01, 2023]