ADAPT and Trinity College Dublin academic Prof. Jane Ohlmeyer took part in a live interview yesterday as part of Series 2 of Dublin’s Hidden Histories, a collaboration between the Trinity Long Room Hub, Near FM, and Unit18 (Trinity in the Community).
During the event, Jane explored the story of Catherine Strong, Dublin’s official city “scavenger” in the early modern period, who oversaw sanitation teams responsible for clearing the city’s streets of human and animal waste. Speaking with Near FM presenter Ciaran Murray, she described how Strong initially profited through levies imposed on shopkeepers and traders before falling from public favour as sanitation conditions across the city deteriorated.
Jane also highlighted how Catherine Strong later reinvented herself as a moneylender, reflecting the resilience of women whose stories were often excluded from historical records. The discussion formed part of Professor Ohlmeyer’s wider work to recover the voices of ordinary, non-elite women in early modern Ireland through her European Research Council-funded project, VOICES: Life and Death, War and Peace, c.1550–c.1700: Voices of Women in Early Modern Ireland.
An internationally recognised historian, Jane is Erasmus Smith’s Professor of Modern History at Trinity College Dublin and has led several major research initiatives, including the 1641 Depositions Project and the development of the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute.
Jane is also the author or editor of numerous articles and fourteen books. Her latest, Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism and the Early Modern World (Oxford, 2023), is based on the 2021 Ford Lectures in Oxford. In 2023 she was awarded the Royal Irish Academy Gold Medal in the Humanities. She is currently working with Briona Ni Dhiarmada on a book called From that Small Island. The Story of the Irish which is based on a 4-part documentary and a feature of the same name.
