This book is an innovative exploration of nineteenth-century family life and society. The first study of its kind, it uses the sibling relationship as a window into Irish society in the past. Employing a creative genealogical methodology, Shannon Devlin pieces together the lives of twenty-five sibling sets from Ulster, allowing for an exploration of power, emotion and gender in the family. She considers families from both Catholic and Protestant backgrounds and in urban and rural contexts, shedding new light on the Ulster middle classes during a century of rapid social and economic change.
Dr Shannon Devlin holds a PhD in History from QUB. She is currently a Lecturer in Modern Irish History at Galway University, having previously taught at Ulster and Queen’s. Her research interests lie in the Irish middle classes, 19th-century Ireland, and family migration, using these family relationships to explore sociability, reputation, and the gendered expectations of middle-class society. This is her first monograph. Diane Urquhart is Professor of Gender History at QUB.
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