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was relatable to a British audience. 68 Texts like Bride of a King are rarely found in convent archives as they are typically ephemeral to the archive collections but this book was catalogued in the archives of the Sisters of Mercy in Handsworth. 69 The annotation on the front cover suggests teaching sisters lent the book to fourth-form students in their schools, so young girls aged thirteen or fourteen. It also appeared in another form, as a serial in the Catholic Pictorial , a weekly Catholic newspaper. Here, it was advertised as ‘The True Fairy Tale – The
read, wrote Hanrahan, mothers could influence them through story-telling. ‘Stories from the Bible, from the lives of saints, Irish history, legend, and fairy tale, will all come to her aid …’ she argued.55 Like other contemporaries, Hanrahan linked religion and nationalism with motherhood, claiming that mothers had a duty to instil both in their sons and daughters.56 In the 1920s and 1930s, Catholic motherhood became an adjunct to the new nation, and religious authorities continued to dominate the discourse on motherhood and Irishness. In November 1922, Rev. J. S