Maureen Wall

{{Infobox writer

| name = Maureen Wall

| birth_date = 1918

| birth_place = Dublin, Ireland

| death_date = June 1972

| death_place =

| occupation = Writer, historian

| nationality = Irish

| genre = History

| subject = 18th-century Irish history

}}

Maureen Wall (née McGeehin; 1918 – June 1972) was an Irish historian known for her work on 18th-century Ireland. She is regarded as a pioneer in the modern study of the Penal Laws in Ireland.{{cite web |url=http://www.ricorso.net/rx/az-data/authors/w/Wall_M2/life.htm |title=Maureen Wall |work=Ricorso |access-date=7 November 2016}}

Life and work

Born Maureen McGeehin in County Donegal, Wall became a leading authority on 18th-century Irish history.{{cite book|author=Maurice R. O'Connell|title=Irish Politics and Social Conflict in the Age of the American Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Po1gY6yCKVAC&pg=PA126|date=24 November 2010|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=978-0-8122-0097-3|pages=126–}}

Wall was educated at an Irish-speaking boarding school in Falcarragh. She trained as a primary school teacher at Carysfort College before pursuing a university degree through evening studies. She was also a member of her local branch of the Gaelic League. In 1944, Wall contracted tuberculosis, which led to extended stays in hospitals in Dún Laoghaire and Switzerland. Her illness ultimately forced her to leave teaching. She later took a position with the Irish Folklore Commission, where she met her future husband, the Commission's librarian, Tom Wall.{{cite book|author=Angela Bourke|title=The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qZ6W1LiIyYYC&pg=PA678|year=2002|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-0-8147-9907-9|pages=678–}}

She married in 1954 and, through her thesis supervisor, secured a position in the Department of Irish History at University College Dublin (UCD). Wall eventually became one of the university’s most respected lecturers. Her academic titles varied over the years, as historian Dudley Edwards was determined to retain her in the department and secured whatever posts were available to ensure her employment.

In 1961, she launched the Dublin Historical Association pamphlet series with her influential work on the Penal Laws. For this, she was awarded the National University of Ireland historical prize.{{cite book|author=Hugh F. Kearney|title=Ireland: Contested Ideas of Nationalism and History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LZpCnzA17q4C&pg=PA16|date=1 April 2007|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-0-8147-4930-2|pages=16–}} Her interpretations of key events in Irish history remained standard for many years.{{cite book|author=Alvin Jackson|author-link=Alvin Jackson (historian)|title=The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qIYfAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT561|date=27 March 2014|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-166760-2|pages=561–}}

Wall is commemorated by a medal awarded to the top-performing student in the second-year history examination at UCD. The prize was endowed by her friends in her memory.

Bibliography

Wall, Maureen. "Partition: The Ulster Question (1916–1926)." In The Irish Struggle, 1916–1926, edited by Desmond Williams. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966.
{{cite book | last=Wall | first=Maureen | title=The Penal Laws, 1691–1760 | publisher=Dublin Historical Association | year=1967 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RKqiQgAACAAJ }}
{{cite book | last1=Wall | first1=Maureen | last2=O'Brien | first2=Gerard | last3=Dunne | first3=Tom | title=Catholic Ireland in the Eighteenth Century: Collected Essays of Maureen Wall | publisher=Geography Publications | year=1952 | isbn=978-0-906602-10-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-hsuAAAAYAAJ }}
Wall, Maureen, and J. G. Simms. A Glimpse of Town and Country in Eighteenth-Century Ireland. 1971.
Wall, Maureen. "The Rise of a Catholic Middle Class in Eighteenth-Century Ireland." Irish Historical Studies, vol. 11, no. 42, 1958, pp. 91-115. Cambridge University Press.

Maureen Wall

Life and work

Bibliography

References

Further reading