Description
Her husband’s will, written on his deathbed, offered a reasonable annuity to support her and the children, but it came with a catch. To get that money, she had to move to Ireland with her children and live in a house of her brothers-in-law’s choosing. English-born, Caroline had migrated to Australia with her family when she was only seventeen. She had never even been to Ireland. Her husband and his family – unlike her – were Catholic.
This extraordinary book combines storytelling with an historian’s detective work. Pieced together from evidence in archives, newspapers, genealogical sites, legal records and old-fashioned legwork, Caroline’s Dilemma sheds new light on the workings of colonial gender relationships and family lives that spanned the 19th century globe. It reveals much about women’s property rights, migration, settler colonialism, the Irish diaspora and sectarian conflict. It shows how one middle-class woman and her family fought to shape their own lives within the British Empire.
‘A truly impressive work of historical recovery, on a major scale’. — Professor Penny Russell, University of Sydney
Published by NewSouth
ISBN 9781742236605
239 A'Beckett Street Melbourne, Victoria, 3000 
03 9326 9288 
office@historyvictoria.org.au 
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