Welcome. My name is Eleanor Fitzsimons. I’m a researcher, writer, journalist and occasional broadcaster. I’m represented by www.andrewlownie.co.uk and I’ve just published my first book Wilde’s Women: how Oscar Wilde was shaped by the women he knew. My writing has been published in a variety of newspapers and journals including the Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Irish Times, Irish Tatler, the Dubliner Magazine, The Gloss, UCD Connections, Maternity & Infant; History Today and Woman Mean Business. I have also contributed regularly to Irish radio and television programmes. I was the sole researcher on several primetime television programmes for the Irish national broadcaster, RTE including ‘What Have The Brits Ever Done For Us’, an examination of the historic relationship between Britain and Ireland commissioned to coincide with the landmark visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Ireland, and ‘Bullyproof’, an IFTA winning documentary series on bullying.
I have a Bachelor of Commerce degree and a Master of Business Studies degree from UCD and spent many years working at senior management level in the market information sector in both Ireland and the UK. In 2011, I returned to University College Dublin after a twenty-three years absence and graduated twelve months later with an MA (first class honours) in Women Gender and Society. I tweet at @EleanorFitz.
Beside Every Man 
Hi Eleanor, I am very interested in feminist issues that are current and present throughout history…I would love to learn more about the course in Women Gender and Society that you took in UCD.
Particularly I was wondering whether your fellow graduates followed the same career path you did or if they used their degree for something else. What opportunities are there for students of Women Gender and Society?
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this!
Julie.
Hi Julie,
Thanks for your comment. The Women Gender and Society MA in UCD is a great course and I really enjoyed it. It was my intention to write about historic women before I did it so that’s how I use it and it is a perfect starting point (modules in Women’s History & Epistemology & the opportunity to write a thesis). I also find it gives me great credibility in the marketplace since, although I don’t have English Lit degrees, no one can argue about my credentials!
As to what the rest of my (small) class did, I’m pretty sure no one else went down the same route as I did. The MA attracts a lot of older women (40s) although we did have 3 or 4 in their twenties including one guy. Several of them are activists or involved in projects to do with women. Many do it for interest and self-development. As to opportunities, while there is perhaps no obvious career path you can use it in many ways.
Women’s Studies (as it used to be called) courses are a little out of fashion & woefully underfunded at the moment but I believe they are still very relevant and can be used in the way I did. The UCD degree is included under the School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice. TCD runs one as well (in the School of Histories and Humanities) and here are links to both:
UCD – https://sisweb.ucd.ie/usis/!W_HU_MENU.P_PUBLISH?p_tag=PROG&MAJR=W249
TCD – https://www.tcd.ie/cgws/
Best of luck with whatever you decide and do please contact me if I can be of further help.
Best wishes,
Eleanor
Hi Eleanor,
Thank you for replying!
At the moment I am merely exploring various areas that I think I would be interested in studying so your account was very helpful in giving me a better understanding of why people decide to study women & society. I really appreciate it you taking the time to give such a detailed account.
I will most certainly contact you if I think of any other questions to ask.
Many thanks,
Julie.
Dear Eleanor
I read that you love solving literary puzzles and applaud your solution to the recent HG Wells misquote on the new coin. I have a conundrum you may be able to help with. As a fellow author I researched pretty deeply for my latest book Walking the Great North Line. In it I mentioned that there was an underground bull burial site in Cambridge. But I foolishly did not check the source and now I can’t find the original book where the fact was mentioned. I suspect that it may be a conflation of bull burial and cambridge university press (who reprint journals who may cover such an event) as the internet shows no sign so far of a cambridge bull burial. But maybe I am wrong? I already have a reader on my tail about this so any help would be most welcome indeed!
yours
Robert Twigger
Dear Robert, thanks for getting in touch. Yours could become my second case in my new career as a lady literary detective. What an intriguing mystery! Is there any possibility that this has anything to do with it? A very rare (unique) burial of a cow discovered by archeologists in Oakington, seven miles outside Cambridge https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-18580332 More on it here: https://www.uclan.ac.uk/articles/research/uclan-students-discover-rare-find
Try the Advanced Full-text search at HathiTrust
with exact words and exact words for 52111 hits,
the first of which, a calendar of HGW quotations from 1911 as it happens has the quotation you were able to correct (from `ideas’ to `ideals’).
DGR
Thanks. We think alike it would seem. That’s exactly where I found it. That calendar from 1915 gave me the correct version of the quote & from there it was simple to find the original.
For a 1911 (first) edition of Quotations, please try TCD
(although whether you can access it on account of pandemic conditions I do not know; one of my own recent enquiries is on hold).
A copy was up for auction in 2015
DGR.
Hello my name is Ilana, and I work on the relationship between Oscar Wilde and women, I am French and your book interests me, is there a translation? I can’t speak English well enough to read a book of this magnitude.
Thanks
Hi Ilana, Je suis désolée. I’m sorry but there is no French translation of Wilde’s Women. I wish there was!! I can email a pdf copy of the book to you if it would help you with translation. Best of luck with your research, Eleanor
Of thanks you !! Thanks thanks !
My email : ilanawaw29@gmail.com
Happy new year ! ♡