Archipelagic identities in Europe: Irish nuns in English convents

Unlike the male religious, who founded colleges across the continent, houses for Irish women religious were not supported. There were only two expressly founded for Irish nuns: The Dominican convent of Bom Sucesso at Belem, Lisbon, founded by Fr Dominic O'Daly in 1639, and the re-foundation of the English Benedictine convent at Ypres as an Irish convent in 1684. This chapter outlines the ways in which sources relating to exiled English convents can be mined for information about Irish nuns. It interrogates the circumstances in which Irish origins are remarked in those sources in order to explore constructions of national identity within the exiled communities. The degree to which ethnic origins determined the country or convent of destination is considered in the context of arguing for an extension of the archipelagic paradigm to include the Iberian Peninsula. The Bagenal sisters were intimately connected with the Irish nobility and royalist activism.