Irish Women Freelance Writers and the Popular Press: An Army Beyond Literary Circles

This article considers the publishing careers of a small number of Irish women who worked as freelance journalists and authors in order to explore both their experiences as professional writers and the industry in which they worked. They are an illustrative sample of freelance writers of their era and their careers shed light on this vast, overlooked aspect of media history, especially that of the increasing numbers of women who sought to earn money from their writing in this period. Beginning to understand these women writers is a step towards better understanding the publishing industry commercial press. This article argues there was an army of periodical writers drawn from far beyond literary circles, who wrote while also working as typists or teachers, and who remained disconnected from other writers even as they regularly published stories and articles over several decades.