Bad Bridget – Crime, mayhem and the lives of Irish emigrant women
8.30pm, Festival Dome at Bridge St
Join authors and podcasters Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick as they discuss their captivating work of social history, uncovering the previously untold stories of generations of Irish female immigrants to the USA that history chose to forget.
About the book
The Number 1 Bestseller
'A captivating account of lives previously ignored' – Sunday Independent
Ireland in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was not a good place to be a woman. Among the wave of emigrants from Ireland to North America were many, many young women who travelled on their own, hoping for a better life. Some lived lives of quiet industry and piety. Others quickly found themselves in trouble - bad trouble, and on an astonishing scale.
Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick, creators of the celebrated 'Bad Bridget' podcast, have unearthed a world in which Irish women actually outnumbered Irish men in prison, in which you could get locked up for 'stubbornness', and in which a serial killer called Lizzie Halliday was described by the New York Times as 'the worst woman on earth'. They reveal the social forces that bred this mayhem and dysfunction, through stories that are brilliantly strange, sometimes funny, and often moving. From sex workers and thieves to kidnappers and killers, these Bridgets are young women who have gone from the frying pan of their impoverished homeland to the fire of vast North American cities.
Bad Bridget is a masterpiece of social history and true crime, showing us a fascinating and previously unexplored world.
About the authors
Elaine Farrell is Reader in Irish Social History at Queen's University Belfast. She researches and teaches on crime and punishment, and women's and gender history. She is particularly interested in the lived experiences of nineteenth-century Irish inhabitants.
Leanne is a Senior Lecturer in History at Ulster University. She researches and writes on Irish women's history, history of medicine, sexuality and crime.