Victoria Anne Pearson, University College Cork, ‘Breaking the Penal Laws’: The life and work of Francis Moylan, 1735-1815.'

Francis Moylan’s life (1735-1815) spanned a complex and tumultuous period in the emergence of modern Ireland. A close friend and collaborator with Nano Nagle, Moylan put in place the infrastructure that made Catholic Poor School Education a fundamental feature of modern Irish society. Moylan also emerged as a principal protagonist in the battle for hearts and minds against the United Irishmen and was a significant figure in the evolution of a Catholic identity in the years leading to the Act of Union. His tenure as Bishop of Kerry and later of Cork, illustrates the agency of alternative voices in this period and provides a window into the shifting nature of the relationship between Catholics and the state in a divided society.

Victoria Anne Pearson is a PhD candidate with the School of History, University College Cork. Her research focuses on the life and work of Bishop Francis Moylan. Her first article, ‘"We Saw A Vision": The Cork Charitable Society, 1791-1815', was published in the History Studies, the Journal of the University of Limerick History Society in 2019.

Monday 8 March 2021, 4.30pm via MS Teams

Pre-register via Eventbrite by 11.00am on 8 March