Mary Anne Tyrrell (1821–94) and her landed estate

‘A miserable thing to be a woman’

Lesley Whiteside

This study of a woman’s management of a middle-sized estate contributes to the understanding of agrarian society and the role of women in it. At the age of 32, this beautiful woman, having suffered the early death of her parents, husband and two children, faced multiple challenges as a landowner. Living in a dilapidated house on a rundown farm with two infant sons and a teenaged daughter, she lacked the training to manage her scattered estate in neighbouring baronies of Cos Kildare and Offaly. She initially felt overcome by difficulties but by the end of her life she had some sense of fulfilment, having successfully raised her children and left the estate intact. Her story provides a rare glimpse into the ideas and attitudes of a free-thinking woman in a society that was still closed to feminism and the changes that it would bring.

Lesley Whiteside was formerly archivist of the Church of Ireland dioceses of Meath & Kildare. She is currently the archivist at Monksgrange, Co. Wexford. Her works include the definitive histories of two historic Irish secondary schools, a biography of a Church of Ireland primate, George Otto Simms, and several books on ecclesiastical stained glass. She has contributed several articles to the Journal of the County Kildare Archaeological Society. Her most recent book is Farming and society since 1700 in the barony of Carbury, Co. Kildare (FCP, 2024).