Brave women: Nano nagle, teresa mulally, and expectations of catholic women in late eighteenth-century Ireland

In late eighteenth-century Ireland, Nano Nagle and Teresa Mulally illegally established Catholic schools for poor children and convents in Cork and Dublin. The Penal Laws imposed by Britain throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries weakened the structure of the Catholic Church. This loosened structure of the church created a space for women to assert their participation in Catholic organizations, especially philanthropic establishments. Women such as Nagle and Mulally were able to use their newfound agency to establish schools and convents, but these women simultaneously relied on clergymen to legitimize and authenticate their philanthropic organizations. Nagle and Mulally adhere to and defy expectations of Catholic some in eighteenth-century Ireland by embodying mercy and asserting their agency within the weak structure of the church.