See also: Meath in 1900
Alice Stopford Green,
(pictured left)
a historian, was born in Kells
on 31 May 1847.
She was educated at home,
and after the death of her father
Archdeacon Stopford
the family moved to London
where she married
John Richard Green in 1877.
She collaborated with him in
his work as an historian.
He died 7 seven years
after their marriage, leaving her
financially independent.
Her first book was Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, pioneered the field of social history, and was published in 1894.
She was an active supporter of Irish nationalist causes, with strong anti imperialist views.
In 1911 she wrote Irish Nationality.
Along with her friend Sir Roger Casement, she was closely associated with the Howth Gun Running. After 1916 she decided that her place was in Ireland, and so she left her London home and moved to 90 St. Stephens Green, Dublin, which was quickly to become an intellectual centre.
She was a strong supporter of the Treaty and was the first woman nominated to the first Irish Senate in 1922 aged 75. She served as an independent senator until her death in 1929, aged 81.
Her last book was A History of the Irish State to 1014, and this was published in 1925.
A description of Meath in 1900 written by her (and transcribed by Dr Danny Cusack from a manuscript in the National Library of Ireland) was published in the N&DHS Journal, Navan, its People and its Past, Vol 1. An extract is included below:
“Navan – the chief town … The grass crawls up to its very doors. Not a cottage in it has a garden. The workhouse gets its potatoes from Dublin … The miserable people of the town starve in the midst of the fat pastures around. There is no work for them in he field…. The canal lies idle. The hopeless men hang around the public houses … women and children are pale … man and women alike have a sad and weary look. In many a poor house when the night falls, there is no light but the little fire, for there is no money for a candle …”
Alice Stopford Green died in Dublin on 28 May 1929, aged 81.
Sources:
Century of Endeavour – Life and Times of Alice Stopford Green, Roy Johnston, 1999.