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The life and times of Mary Ann McCracken, 1770–1866: a Belfast panorama. By Mary McNeill. Revised edition. Pp 314. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. 2019. €22.95.

which expanded steadily between 1807 and 1830, with the founding of twenty-two houses in fourteen counties throughout Ireland. The success of foundation houses, convents and schools depended on the entrepreneurial skills of each new community of nuns, and how they utilised money garnered from charity sermons, donations, bequests and collections. Funding also stemmed from dowries brought by individuals entering the order (typically between £500 and £600 between 1770 and 1870), as well as generous donations from wealthy families, lay philanthropists and local clergy. The chapters which trace the expansion of Presentation schools to countries where Irish emigrants were in need of Catholic education chart tales of personal resilience in the face of adversity. Included is the arduous task which faced the four Galway nuns who established the first overseas foundation in Newfoundland in 1833, and how, despite having ‘to slice the milk’, they managed to ‘bear the cold well and were never in better health’ (p. 65). In an era of open hostility towards Catholics in England, ‘it took courage’ (p. 113) for Presentation Sisters to found the first Irish order in Manchester in 1836, and despite anti-Catholic prejudice, ‘the pioneering sisters built a reputation as skilled and capable teachers’ (p. 175). During the Famine, the Presentation Sisters’ apostolate extended beyond the classroom, as they fed and clothed who they could, and the chapter on second-level education provides detailed information on how the nuns adapted to the numerous changes to education in Ireland since the formation of the national education system in 1831. Utilising convent annals, the authors examine the order during the twentieth century, exploring how communities endured through the First and Second World Wars, and how they challenged the patriarchal propensities of individual members of the church hierarchy in Ireland, to establish second-level education for working-class girls (p. 142). Whilst Nagle’s mission to provide education for the poor links each chapter, ultimately her legacymust be read through the perseverance and endurance of the thousands of Presentation Sisters who followed in her wake. Although deferential to the ecclesiology of the Catholic Church, they often acted autonomously, inspired by confidence in their Catholic identity and the desire to fulfil the directives of the original charism set out by Nagle. Consequently, imbued with Catholic devotionalism, the Presentation Sisters remained leading global providers of Catholic education into the twentieth century. One minor caveat, is that only one chapter provides a personal insight into the life of Nagle, but as the authors explain, other than a few hand-written letters, there is ‘very slender evidence of her life’ (p. 5). Despite this, they have produced a meticulously researched book, with extensive endnotes and bibliography. Published to coincide with the tercentenary of Nagle’s birth, it will attract those interested in the history of education, of women religious and the Catholic church, and is a welcome contribution to studies by historians such as Rosemary Raughter, Margaret MacCurtain, Yvonne McKenna, Jacinta Prunty and Susan O’Brien, all of whom have helped to bring the lives of formidablewomen religious and their communities into the public realm.