FEMALE ASCETICISM IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: A CASE-STUDY OF NUNS IN IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The present dissertation examines female orders and congregations in Ireland in the nineteenth century as a case-study of the organisation of female asceticism in the Catholic church in that period. It aims to analyse those groups in the terms of the interaction between the position of women in Ireland and Catholic techniques for controlling and utilising ascetic religious tendencies within the church. In defining the peculiarity of the female congregations in the nineteenth century, the study relates the Irish female congregations to the general background of the history of asceticism in the Catholic church, looking to both the male and female strands of that asceticism. It first briefly reviews the development of organised asceticism in the Catholic church up the counter-Reformation era (Chapter Two). Within the framework which emerges from that background, it outlines the seventeenth and eighteenth century developments which set the major precedents for the nineteenth century congregations (Chapter Three). Introducing the material of the Irish case study, it then examines the foundation and growth of the major female congregations founded in Ireland in the first half of the nineteenth century (Chapter Four). The study then takes up the detailed analysis of the Irish congregations in terms of the framework developed in Chapter Two. It first looks at the nature and effects of the active service performed for the Catholic church by these congregations (Chapters Five and Six). Following that, it examines the forms of organizational structure which were used to incorporate those activities into the life of the church (Chapter Seven). The study concludes by summarising the general argument on the position and importance of female asceticism in the nineteenth century Catholic church in Ireland.