Includes bibliographical references and index.

Pt. I, Caring for children: fatherhood and motherhood : -- Matty and the Daffs: the family life of Theobald Wolfe Tone in exile / Sylvie Kleinman -- Childhood in the country house, Munster, 1850-1914 / Maeve O'Riordan -- Hands and faces gnawed by rats: children of the drunken criminal classes in early twentieth-century Ireland / Conor Reidy ; -- Pt. II, Child-rearing and social class : -- Women who read are dangerous: elite and gentry female education in eighteenth-century Ireland / Gaye Ashford -- Fashioning childhood: gender, dress and childhood in Ireland, 1800-1860 / Mary Hatfield -- Religion and the Irish Boy's Brigade, 1888-1914 / Brendan Power ; -- Pt. III, Adult intervention in children's health : -- the Osteoarchaeology of exclusion: child burials in post-medieval Ireland / Linda G. Lynch -- Dublin's poor children in a transitional Ireland: disease, agents of change...and flies / Ida Milne -- Decline of breastfeeding in early twentieth-century Ireland: impact of medical policy and practice, 1900-1920s / Jutta Kruse -- Preventing tuberculosis in twentieth-century Ireland: BCG vaccination for infants and children / Anne Mac Lellan.

The essays in this collection focus on aspects of parenthood and childhood in Ireland from the 1700s to the 1950s. They provide new insights into parent-child relations in the past and pursue new areas of research, including the family life of Theobald Wolfe Tone; childhood in the country house in Munster; the treatment of Irish mothers sent to the State Inebriate Reformatory, Ennis; and a detailed study of the BCG vaccination campaign to combat childhood tuberculosis in the twentieth century. These essays highlight the complex role played by parents and other adults in the emotional, educational, cultural, social, spiritual, and physical well-being of children.