Life
1862–1942 [Mary Theresa Hayden]; scholar, historian, feminist and language activist; b. 19 May 1862, Merrion Sq., Dublin; dg. of Thomas Hayden, Vice-Pres. of Royal College of Surgeons; educ. Mount Anville Convent, Thurles, Co. Tipperary; grad. Alexandra Coll., Earlsfort Tce., BA 1885, MA, 1887; travelled widely in Greece, America, and India; and junior fellow by examination at Royal University of Ireland [RUI but forbidden to lecture]; joined with Agnes Farrelly in campaign for women’s rights in universities; and formed Irish Association of Women Graduates with Hanna Sheehy Skeffington; advising examiner on Internediate Board, 1907-12; and member of the Board of UCD and the Senate of NUI after the Universities Act of 1908; appt. first professor of Irish Modern History at UCD, 1911-38; friendly with both Yeats and Pearse, with whom she shared holidays in Connemara; supported IPP and opposed the 1916 Rising; founded Catholic Women’s Suffrage Society with Mary Louise Gwynn, 1915; opposed the articles on women and family in the 1937 Constitition; her diaries were published in 5 vols, 2005-06 (1878-83; 1884-87; 1893-98; 1899-1903); co-authored with George A. Moonan, A Short History of the Irish People (1921) - Moonan writing the early history and Hayden the later. RIA.
[ The article on Mary Hayden in Dictionary of Irish Biography (RIA 2009) - online - is by Diarmaid Ferriter. ]
Works
With George A. Moonan, A Short History of the Irish People, from the Earliest Times to 1920, with specially designed maps (London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1921), fold. map [front]; Do. rep. Educ. Co. of Ireland 1960) [2 Parts [i.e., vols; Pt. 2 "From 1603 to the Present Time"]; Selected Writings (Killala, Co. Mayo: Morrigan Books 2005), 220pp.; also Königstrasse 68: Die Tagebucher Einer Jungen Irin in Bonn, 185-87 (Morrigan 2005), 240pp. [in English with German-language annotations].
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Commentary
Norreys Jephson O’Conor, review of A Short History of Ireland, by Hayden & George A. Moonan (1923): ȂIn this Short History the struggle between Irish and Norsemen, Irish and English, and the internecine wars, all of which are so confusing to the reader of the average history of Ireland, take on real significance. For instance, Hugh O’Neill and Rory O’Donnell, in Elizabethan times, appear as not merely self-willed tribal chiefs, but leaders who had a vision of a united Irish Ireland. Irish history, through the able interpretation of Miss Hayden and Mr. Moonan, is clearly shown as a conflict between civilizations rather than as a series of instances of the malignity of nations and of individuals. The authors are remarkably free from prejudice; the discussions [243] of religion are frank and clear, particularly as regards the Reformation in Ireland; such slight bias as is present of course favors the Roman Catholic Church, for the National University, with which Miss Hayden is connected, is Roman Catholic. The chief defect of the book as history is that the English policy in Ireland is not frequently enough related to the general European situation. This is especially true in the explanation of the Act of Union, where there is scarcely a hint that one of the reasons for its passage was the desirability of binding together the British dominions against the increasing power of Napoleon. [...] Another, and less important, defect of the Short History is in the first of the two books supplied by Mr. Moonan, wherein the author gives what is perhaps too rosy a picture of the early Irish State. [...]’ (In Changing Ireland: Literary Backgrounds of the Irish Free State, 1889-1922, Harvard UP 1924, pp.242-43.) [Available at Internet Archive - online; accessed 06.05.2024.]
Quotations
Resignation of Dr. Hyde [final sect. heading in A Short History of the Irish People (1921)]: ‘The victory of the University agitation fixes the high-water mark of the direct influence of the Gaelic League. The positions won for the language were retained, but no new development has since occurred. The arduous struggle had absorbed the attention and energies of most of the leaders of the movement; others were engaged in the work of the “Colaistí”. Meanwile, in the ranks of the League, a new feeling was developed in favour of a definite manifestation of sympathy with the growing school of advanced National politics. This feeling affected the entire organisation, [559] and became particularly marked amongst the delegates who attended the annual “Ard Fheis.” Matters came to a crisis at the Ard Fheis in Dundalk in 1915, when Dr. Hyde, believing, apparently, that the attitude being adopted by the organisaiton was inconsistent with that which it had hitherto maintained towards political schools of thought, resigned the Presidency which he had held since the creation of the League. Since that event intensity of political feeling and sweeping political changes have obscured the importance of the purely language movement. On the other hand, however, the language has now definitely become the charge of the nation. Recognised and honoured as the national language by a political party which has secured the adhesion of the great mass of the people, the Irish language now occupies a stronger place than it has held for centuries in the mind of the Irish Nation. (A Short History of the Irish People, Longmans &c., 1921, pp.558-59; The End.) [Available online; accessed 06.05.2024.]
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