Irish women writers entered the international publishing scene in unprecedented numbers in the period between 1878 and 1922. This collection of new essays explores how Irish women, officially disenfranchised through much of that era, felt inclined and at liberty to exercise their political influence through the unofficial channels of their literary output. By challenging existing and often narrowly-defined conceptions of what constitutes 'politics', this collection investigates Irish women writers' responses to, expressions of, and dialogue with contemporary politics. The political debates into which they entered included not only the debates surrounding nationalism and unionism, but also those concerning education, cosmopolitanism, language, Empire, economics, philanthropy, socialism, the marriage 'market', the publishing industry, readership(s), the commercial market, and employment. The collection demonstrates how women from a variety of religious, social, and regional backgrounds - including Emily Lawless, L. T. Meade, Katharine Tynan, Lady Gregory, Rosa Mulholland, and the Ulster writers Ella Young, Beatrice Grimshaw, and F. E. Crichton - used their work to advance their own private and public political concerns through astute manoeuvrings both in the expanding publishing industry and against the partisan expectations of an ever-growing readership. Close readings of individual texts are framed throughout by new archival research and detailed historical contextualisation. Offering fresh critical perspectives by internationally renowned scholars including James H. Murphy, Margaret Kelleher, Patrick Maume, Eve Patten, and Heidi Hansson, Irish women's writing, 1878-1922 is an innovative and essential contribution to the study of Irish literature as well as women's writing at the turn of the twentieth century. It includes a foreword by Lia Mills, author of the critically acclaimed Fallen.