Despite being voted ‘Ireland's greatest woman’ in an R.T.É. radio poll of 2005, little is known about the life and work of Honora (Nano) Nagle (1718–84), the foundress of the international teaching order, the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Presentation Sisters). Indeed, in the opening lines of their book Nano Nagle: the life and the legacy, Deirdre Raftery, Catriona Delaney and Catherine Nowlan-Roebuck comment on the invisibility of Nagle in the plethora of literature on education, the Catholic church, and the evolving field of scholarly inquiry into women religious. Utilising Presentation archives in Ireland, England, Newfoundland and North America, the authors correct the omission in this biography, which focuses on Nagle's contribution to the field of education, and the international growth and expansion of her religious community in the centuries following her death.

Born in County Cork in 1718, Nagle may have had ‘the misfortune to be born a woman’ (p. 13) and a Catholic, in an Ireland subject to the penal laws, but she benefitted from a close-knit and wealthy family who reinforced her Catholic, Irish heritage. The family's personal success provided her with an education and an insight into the art of astute financial judgement, and time spent on the continent, including two years in a French convent, stimulated Nagle's religious and educational vocation. On her return to Cork, she founded schools for impoverished boys and girls, and became the first woman to establish a religious congregation in modern Ireland. Driven by her desire to educate the poor and disadvantaged, the authors portray Nagle as ‘an independent spirit’, fearless, and with ‘no concern for what others thought of her’ (p. 33).

It was this spirit which would drive the future apostolate of her religious congregation, 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 legacy must 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 formidable women religious and their communities into the public realm.